All the Time in the World
by SeveredMooseHead
Summary: Before the events of Undertale, W. D. Gaster and his two sons, Sans and Papyrus, live out their lives in the lab at Hotland. With their father consumed in his work, Sans has to juggle his responsibilities as his father's son and lab partner, as well as his responsibilities to his neglected little brother, all the while discovering the secret behind his father's true research.
1. Chapter 1

Sans' vision was dominated by darkness. He tried to smile through his nerves, but he could feel the sweat pouring down his skull. He looked to the left, and then the right, hoping to see some kind of light to orient himself, but there was nothing. He could feel hard leather underneath him, his fingers gripping tight to the arm rests. The weight of the strange machine was pressing down on his shoulders, forcing him to slouch. He sighed, attempting to sound nonchalant, but it came out nervous and wavering.

"Don't slouch, Sans."

"Sorry Dad," replied Sans quickly, correcting his posture, "Is the test almost done? It's stuffy in here."

"In a moment, Sans," said his father, "Stay calm."

Sans could feel his father shuffling around the laboratory. He heard tools being moved around on the metal surface of the lab's workbench. Eventually, he heard the footsteps of his father's leather soles and soon after felt the older skeleton lay a hand on the top of the device, calibrating some unseen piece of machinery.

"Move your head back and forth for me, Sans. Do you have full range of movement?"

Sans did as he was told, and looked around. The helmet portion of the device was actually pretty roomy, to Sans' relief, and he could turn his head to either side, up and down without touching the sides.

"Yup."

"Good. Now pay attention to your surroundings. Report anything strange. Do you understand?"

"Yes Dad," Sans answered, rolling his eyes. His father was a genius, it was true, but young as Sans was, he wasn't an idiot. He understood most of the things his father told him, and he had learned to ask questions when he didn't. "I got it."

"Good," his father said, "Turning on normal viewing mode now."

Sans heard a click, and then a barely audible hum. He could see small points of light begin to light up the inside of the helmet, and soon, an image began to appear, distorted by the curve of the helmet's bowl. It was shaped like some kind of deep-sea diving helmet, and appeared to be a dark, perfectly spherical piece of glass surrounding his head. Sans blinked his eyes as a picture suddenly lit up and came into focus. Once he was adjusted, he was relived by what he saw.

The picture he saw was simply a panoramic view of the lab, with his father, Dr. Gaster, standing over him, a gentle, toothy smile upon his face. As usual, the older skeleton was standing rail straight, with high square shoulders. Despite working in the lab all day, the jet black suit he wore still seemed finely pressed and washed, and his hands curled and wrestled together in constant motion filled with nervous energy. Gaster had wide, bright eyesockets, and Sans was sure that he powdered his skull in a vain attempt to keep it the same pristine white of his youth. He leaned forward in barely concealed concern for his son inside the experimental device, wringing the bones of his fingers together.

"Tell me what you see, Sans," said Gaster.

"Just some old bag of bones," answered Sans with a smile of his own, unsure if his father could actually see him.

Gaster frowned gravely as he held up a hand, finger extended to reprimand Sans, "Now, is that any way to speak to your father, young man? Have you some bone to pick with me?"

"Nah. Nothing wrong with a playful ribbing, huh?"

The two held that position for a moment, before both burst into laughter. Gaster pat the top of the helmet as if Sans could feel it, but all Sans saw was his father's hand go strangely stretched and distorted as it got too close to whatever cameras were on the outside of the helmet.

"So, I think we should call stage one a success, wouldn't you?" said Gaster, turning away and moving his hands about in vivid gesticulations as he spoke, a habit he had always had as long as Sans could remember. "Photon readings seem nominal, your vision is unimpeded, and you are experiencing no pain. Nothing wrong that you can see?"

"I'd say. The view looks weird though," said Sans, taking a look around, "All distorted and wavy, like there's something wrong with the cameras."

"Nothing to be done about that, I'm afraid," explained Gaster, gesturing vaguely towards the helmet, "there are no cameras."

"Really? But..."

"What you're seeing, if my theory is correct, is a view of a parallel timeline in which you and I are performing the exact same experiment. Your helmet is more like a window than a camera. More than likely, your counterpart is able to see me, just as you are able to see my counterpart. Do you understand?"

Sans' eyes went wide at the realization. The Gaster he saw was not exactly the Gaster he knew. They were identical in every way, but the knowledge of what he was seeing gave Sans pause. He tried to nod his head, forgetting that Gaster could not see him, and instead ventured an affirmative thumbs up.

However, Gaster reached down and lowered the younger Skeleton's hand. "You must be careful not to let yourself come into view of the instrument, Sans. The machine is equipped with a rudimentary paradox-correcting engine, which can take the brunt of resolving the paradox of someone observing themselves, but it's best not to tax the machine's capabilities before I've had a chance to run the necessary simulations."

"Oh. Right," said Sans, pasting his arms to his sides and being very careful not to look down. He suddenly realized why the helmet was so heavy and bulky, so he would not be able to reach up to see himself, and why slouching was so dangerous. He sat up straight anew, and looked up into his father's face.

"Right! So!" cried Gaster, suddenly excited, as he rubbed his hands together, "Ready for stage two?"

"Ready as I'll ever be, Dad."

Gaster's smile took on a giddy look as he began to walk across the room. As more of him came into Sans' view, he could see the gentle crease of his pantl egs, and the shine from his patent leather shoes. He flipped a switch and then proceeded to pull a series of levers, before he looked back eagerly to Sans, waiting for something to happen.

Slowly, Sans began to notice a change. His vision was blurring, and he realized that it was the view of the time-window shifting. However, when the view stabilized, it was not in a specific location. He instead saw what appeared to be a set of blue strings billowing out from his body. The strings were wound together, splitting and combining themselves, some in elaborate twists and knots, and others barely touching before splitting apart again. He blinked his eyes, trying to make sense of the view, and wondered why it suddenly felt like he was floating somewhere he did not belong.

"Can you still hear me, Sans?"

"Yeah, Dad, uh," began Sans, trying to find the words to describe this place. He gave up. "Where am I?"

"If I'm not mistaken, you should be observing the phenomenon I spoke about earlier. Alternate timelines. Rather than observing one from within, as you were doing before, you are viewing every conceivable possibility all at once from the outside looking in."

"It looks like a mess of tangled strings."

"That must be how your mind has rationalized the sight. Our minds have no concept of fourth dimensional thinking outside of linear thought, and so, when confronted with something we do not understand we construct a... convenient fiction based loosely on that phenomenon. Tangled string is a useful way to think of it." Gaster sounded thoughtful, and Sans knew that the man must have been pacing back and forth, letting his hands talk as much as he did, "When I ran this experiment on myself, I rationalized them as a jumble of symbols, each forming strange sentences of alien language. Fascinating that your mind has assigned them a color! I must note that down."

"Well, it's creepy is what it is," said Sans, becoming more and more uncomfortable as he saw more and more strings began to surround him. He was overcome with an odd feeling of deja vu, and considered closing his eyes to escape the sight.

"Next step. Sans, please focus all of your attention on one string. Try to find one that, er, speaks to you... I don't know how a string can speak to you. A sentence of alien language can but... well... Just try to interact with the strings, if you please. Rationalize it in your mind however you like. The processor will be able to read your intentions."

Sans was still uneasy, but he was game. He tried to think of a way that the strings could be put to use, and in doing so, he focused on one close-by string in particular which seemed to glow in a peculiar way. It almost seemed familiar to him. Mentally, he reached out to the string and decided to pull on it.

All at once, the floating feeling left him. He had weight all of a sudden, and felt as if he was falling into the world of that string. The view melted away, and exploded in the next moment in a display of vibrant, formless color. Suddenly, his vision cleared, and he found himself in a huge room, cleaned meticulously, and dominated on one side by a massive four-poster bed. He realized it was exactly like his own father's room, except strangely huge.

In one corner, equally as oversized, was a crib. With an odd lurch, he realized that he was moving without his legs. He was seeing this all from the point of view of whatever Sans lived in this point in time. Sans wobbled drunkenly from side to side, and the motion might have caused Sans to become nauseous if he hadn't stopped and leaned against the crib for support.

"What do you see?" asked Gaster from outside the helmet.

"I... I remember this," said Sans.

Suddenly, the view whipped around. Sans was filled with a sudden thrill when he saw his father, looking younger than the man looked now, walk into the room. He screamed something, but Sans couldn't hear him.

"I... I wanted to see Papyrus," said Sans, filling in the blank of the conversation, remembering the events as they happened, "Stop. I just... I wanted to..."

"Sans. What are you looking at?"

But Sans had drowned out his father's voice. The terror of the memory filled him too much. The view suddenly pitched down and he saw why the Gaster of this timeline was so upset. In hands far too small to be his, Sans was carrying a handful of dirt and earthworms.

"I wasn't doing anything!" whimpered Sans, lost in the memory. His head had begun to ache as soon as he saw himself in the view of the time window.

"Sans. Get ahold of yourself, please," cried Gaster.

However, in the memory, Gaster had grabbed hold of Sans' arm harshly, pulling him out of the bedroom and forcing him to drop the dirt clod on the floor. Gaster was furious, yelling at Sans. He looked down, his view becoming blurry with tears, and he could see his own body, dressed in a striped shirt and shorts, with his little shinbones peeking out the front.

With a full view of himself, Sans' head exploded in pain. All around him he could hear some kind of emergency klaxon, and the entire scene was becoming blurry and unclear. He could hear someone calling his name. He was slumping down, the weight of the machine forcing him to sink into his chair, as he watched his father yell at him.

All of a sudden, the view went dark. Sans breathed in sharply, realizing that he had been holding his breath. He was deaf, dumb, and blind to everything in the world for a few moments, until he realized he could hear someone calling his name from far away. It was his father's voice.

"Sans! Sans! Talk to me! What happened?"

He tried to talk, but he felt exhausted. He heard heavy snaps and clicks as the latches holding down the helmet were undone, and soon it was lifted off of him. Gaster appeared in Sans' vision, the real Gaster of this time and place, and Sans finally snapped out of his craze.

"What...?" began Sans, at once surprised by how weak his voice was, as well as how deep it was. He nearly expected the voice of a child to come out. He continued, "What happened to me?"

"Some kind of paradox feedback loop," said Gaster with concern. He was staring at Sans' forehead in horror and ran his fingers over Sans' skull, "What did you see?"

"It was... It was from when I was a kid, and Papyrus was... was just a baby."

"A personal memory? Of course."

"I wanted to play with Papyrus, so I brought in some dirt so it could be like we were playing outside. You came in and... And yelled at me."

Recollection passed across Gaster's face. He had forgotten about it, but it came back to him how it had happened. He seemed embarrassed all of a sudden.

"I looked down at myself, and... and then I was in pain."

"That's the feedback loop," confirmed Gaster, "You directly observed yourself in another quantum state. The universe was attempting to correct the mistake by merging you with the other you from that timeline. Ultimately you would have been destroyed if it had been allowed to continue.."

"D-destroyed?"

Gaster sighed and reached into a pocket. He withdrew a bright silver case and opened it, revealing the white powder inside, as well as a small mirror set into the lid. He held it up to Sans' face, and he could see the crack that had begun to form in his skull, starting from the top of his right eye socket and midway up his forehead. He grimaced.

"I thought the Paradox engine was strong enough to correct for the anomaly and protect you against feedback. Strange. I thought since you were so young there would be less risk of paradoxes. Fewer past events means fewer branches to sort through. I must have had it backwards. Young people have more possibilities in the future. Those must be more powerful than past events," muttered Gaster, before he knelt down to come face to face with Sans, "Are you alright?"

Sans was still woozy, but he could move his arms and legs just fine. There was nothing but a lingering ache in his forehead. He nodded his head.

"Yeah, Dad. Sorry for worrying you."

Gaster reached forward and hugged his son tightly. He then pulled away and held out a hand to help his son out of the chair.

"Come. Let's get you some plaster for that crack."

Sans stared at his father's hand, and smiled, before he took it and pulled himself up. His legs were still weak, but he could walk with assistance from Gaster. He looked back at the machine and, for the first time, noticed the little tiny device which lived on top, held on by straps and wires. The Paradox engine was smaller than Sans expected, not even big enough to fit in the palm of his hand, but it was still glowing faintly on one end, where a blue circle stared back at him, like some kind of all-seeing eye.

"King Asgore..." said Sans, looking away from the device, "Is he gonna like what we did?"

"I do believe so. The possibilities of time are endless. The risks are very real, as you have experienced, but if they can be overcome, this could be just the tool we need to finally break the barrier and escape."

"So... you, me, and Papyrus could all live up on the surface together?"

"Of course. That's what we're all working towards. A better future for all monsters. All monsters includes you and Papyrus."

Sans was lead over to a simple first aid station, a white cabinet set into the wall, and Gaster opened it, withdrawing a simple bone-mending powder. He sat Sans down in a swivel chair before he opened the packet and dumped it into a cup and hurried over to a sink meant to wash off chemical burns. He mixed the water with the plaster and, soon, had a bone-white paste which matched Sans' white color. With a small brush in hand he leaned over Sans and began to apply the paste over the top of Sans' wound.

"Ow! That hurts."

"It will heal in time. The plaster will make sure it doesn't show. I can even let you borrow some of my powder, so the color matches."

"Right. Sure."

Soon, the plaster was applied, and Gaster took up a page of notes to fan the paste so it would dry faster. They stayed that way for a moment, until Sans broke the silence.

"So, how does seeing the past help the king break the barrier?"

"Seeing is useful, yes, but ultimately it won't help much. Looking into your own personal past is all well and good, but as soon as you look into the future, you change that future completely. The knowledge of how you will be changes how you end up. It is limited in usefulness."

"Then how...?"

"Why, travel of course."

"Time travel?" Sans was astonished. That was the kind of thing that only happened in those silly shows Papyrus liked to watch.

"Precisely," said Gaster, still fanning Sans' forehead with one hand and beginning to gesticulate with another, "You remember I referred to the helmet as a window. Well, what I plan on creating is something more. A door. A door to the past, and into the future. You could not only affect change in the world, but you could more accurately forecast what might happen and plan accordingly. You might even travel back to the moment the barrier went up and destroy it before it even goes up!"

"It sounds dangerous."

Gaster shrugged, before he put down his makeshift fan and running his finger over his son's cracked forehead. He opened his case of powder again, and took out a small brush. As he began to dab Sans' wound with coverup, he continued, "All science carries an inherent risk, Sans. The unknown is the most dangerous place we can go. However, it is sometimes the most dangerous path that reaps the most rewards. Do you understand?"

"I think I'll get it," said Sans, winking an eye socket, "In time."

Gaster gave a little chuckle, before patting his son on the shoulder.

"Daddy!" cried a small but loud voice from outside of the lab.

Gaster turned suddenly, just as a small skeleton rushed into the lab and launched himself towards Sans and Gaster. The skeleton was short, but already somewhat gangly, and was already beginning to outgrow the red and blue striped shirt he was wearing. His skull was taller than either Sans or Gaster's, but he had Gaster's bright eyes, and was full of smiles.

"Daddy!" cried little Papyrus again as he hugged Gaster's leg and latched on for dear life, "You've been in here with Sans forever!"

Gaster smiled. "Sorry Papyrus."

With a pat on the top of the little skeleton's skull, Gaster knelt down and took Papyrus by either shoulder, as much out of affection as it was to stop him from fidgeting so much.

"You know Daddy has a lot of work to do, Papyrus. You can't just run in here without knocking. It could be dangerous."

"I... I'm not afraid of danger! Danger is my middle name!"

"You don't have a middle name, pipsqueak," taunted Sans, his good humor returning after his run in with his father's machine.

"I do too! And it's Danger because I said so," said Papyrus, "Can we go into town? Please?"

"Into town?" said Gaster, "What for?"

"Because I'm bored! My TV shows are all in reruns, and I haven't seen you all day."

"I'm sorry, Papyrus, but I'm still very busy."

"But...!"

"Sans, how are you feeling?" interrupted Gaster.

"Uh. Better?"

"How about you take Papyrus into town. Here. Buy him something nice."

Gaster reached into another pocket, where he had a leather wallet filled with gold pieces. He handed Sans a handful, and gave each of his sons a pat on the head, before he began to get back to work.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Papyrus to Gaster, clearly hurt.

"I have to finish calibrating these machines. Be a good boy for Sans. I'll be here if you need me. Daddy has a lot of work to do."

With that, Gaster grabbed a box of tools and rushed over to the helmet. He ignored his sons as he began to attack the machine with various tools, tightening this, and typing that into whatever console. Sans knew vaguely what he was trying to accomplish, but he was only somewhat familiar with the theories and was too lazy to crunch the numbers in his head like his father seemed to be able to do at will.

Papyrus' disappointed face said all it needed to say to Sans, and so the older skeleton took his brother by the hand and lead him out of the lab. Before they were gone, Papyrus managed a little, weak "Bye Daddy," which earned a half-hearted wave and a little smile from their father before he went back to work.

No words were said as the two young skeletons walked out the front of the lab. The two of them barely registered the sudden change in temperature as the sweltering heat of Hotland washed over them. Wordlessly, the two of them walked along the path and climbed into the elevator leading to the capitol.

Papyrus, silently fuming, suddenly spoke, "I hate science."

"Nah, Papyrus. Don't say that. Dad's working hard for both of us."

"I never see him though!" Papyrus stamped his foot as they walked, "How come you get to hang out with him all day?"

"I'm his lab assistant."

"Can I be a lab assistant? Were you always a lab assistant?"

Sans chuckled, "No, not always, kiddo. Dad's always had work. He isn't so good at making time for himself. I had to grow up a little before he would let me help out."

"I can grow up too!"

"It's not all fun and games, kiddo. Lab assistant is a job. It's hard work."

"Oh..." said Papyrus, looking down at the metal floor of the elevator, "Well, then it's a stupid job. I hate it. I wish you and Daddy didn't have to work."

Sans paused, "Me too, kiddo. Me too."

After another moment of silence, Sans squeezed Papyrus' hand reassuringly, and then let go and slung his arm over the younger skeleton's shoulders.

"I know you're bummed, Papyrus. That's fine, but you have to understand that Dad is working hard for everyone's sake. He's trying to make the world a better place, so we're not all trapped down here in the underground."

"Can't someone else do it?"

"Our Dad's the smartest guy in the whole world Papyrus. If anyone can do it, he can. And you know what will happen once he does it?"

"What?"

"We're all going to go up to live up above. There will be sunlight, and beaches, and stars, and roads to drive cars on, and everything."

"Is all that stuff really up there?"

"I promise. And I never break a promise, right?"

"I guess..."

With a nudge, Sans smiled, "Don't be so down in the dumps, kiddo. Howsabout this? I'll get you whatever you want at the capitol. Okay?"

Papyrus thought for a minute, and then smiled wide, "Can... can I have a scarf?"

"A... scarf?"

Sans looked confused. They lived in Hotland, and the lab was built right on top of a geothermal hotzone that powered everything in the lab from the particle accelerator to the coffee maker. A scarf seemed like a strange thing to want.

"Yeah! Just like the hero of that show I watch! He's so cool! He wears a mask and he kicks badguys until they explode, and whenever he appears he's always wearing this big long scarf!"

Sans had to laugh. In the dump he had found a VHS tape containing three episodes of a superhero show for kids and brought it home for Papyrus. The tape was so damaged they could barely watch it, but Papyrus was an instant devotee, and watched all three episodes on loop over and over again.

"Alright, alright, I'll get a scarf. You can be a real hero, then, right?"

"Right! Just like Daddy!"

"Yup. Just like Dad."

"If he's protecting everyone, then I want to protect everyone too. Everyone'll know who I am, and I'll swoop in to save the day with the bone of justice."

"You just have to be careful wearing that scarf around Hotland, Papyrus."

"Huh?" said Papyrus, looking up at his big brother, "Why?"

"Because you're already too hot under the collar."

"No..." Papyrus' eyes began to go wide as he realized he had walked right into his brother's trap.

"But even then I'm sure everyone around here will give you a warm reception."

"Stoooop."

"What's the matter? I'm on fire!"

"I hate you Sans, I hate you!" said Papyrus, eyes bugging out of his sockets as he punched his brother with his tiny fists and stamped his feet on the ground.

"What's the matter? Is this argument getting a little heated?"

Papyrus screamed, but his face was turned up in a smile. Sans laughed, and once again slung his arm over his little brother's shoulders, pulling him in for a hug. With nothing else to do, Papyrus encircled his brother with his arms and tried to look sullen, but his bright honest face couldn't quite manage it. Soon after, the doors opened and the two of them walked back out into the capitol, on the look out for the first clothing store they could find.


	2. Chapter 2

Sans looked deeply into the mirror, running a finger over the faint mark where his skull was still healing. It had been weeks since that day, and Gaster had been working almost non-stop since then. The older skeleton had occasionally asked up for help, but not nearly so often as Sans was used to. The brief moments he had in the lab were spent passing back and forth tools for his dad, who was working on some large, mysterious machine beneath a sheet.

In the meantime, Papyrus had been going stir-crazy. The capitol was a long elevator ride away from their lab, and Gaster forbade him from traveling into the city alone. Even when Sans went with him, he saw how the other kids treated him. Papyrus was weird, and immature, two things that Sans treasured, but if he wasn't careful, the other kids could be cruel to him, and Sans had to be there to help him out. In the absence of anything else to do, Papyrus took over the downstairs living room, spreading toys all over the place and playing superhero in the wreckage. Sans tried to get him to clean up after himself at first, but after their father spent multiple nights sleeping in his lab, Sans gave up, instead opting to simply pick up after Papyrus after he crashed at night.

He moved the mirror lower. He was wearing only a pair of basketball shorts as he sat on the bed, leaving his ribs exposed. He was growing more and more every day. He was fifteen years old in two more weeks, if his Dad thought to remember, and with some annoyance, he found that his ribs were beginning to balloon out, giving him the appearance of being a little fat when he wore clothes. He sighed. Nothing wrong with being a little big-boned.

Sans sat up straight when he heard their doorbell go off. A moment later, he heard Papyrus call up.

"Saaaans," yelled Papyrus loud enough for the whole underground to hear, "King Fluffybuns is here!"

Sans pressed his palm against his face and couldn't help but laugh. He then got up from his bed, tossing the hand mirror onto his pillow and pulled on a white T-shirt and a pair of blue house slippers, before rushing out of his room and leaning over the banister to get a good look.

Sure enough, looking embarrassed by the outburst of the skeleton child, King Asgore was standing in the middle of the living room awkwardly, with Papyrus orbiting around him, arms outstretched making airplane noises. Despite everything, Asgore was a good sport, and seemed to be charmed by Papyrus' childishness.

"King Dreemur!" called Sans from the bannister, "One sec. I'll be right down."

Sans rushed back into his room just to grab one last thing – a white lab coat, cut in his size, although it was starting to fit a little small to him – before he ran back out and down the escalator. Their father was a fan of fine extravagances, and one evening while he was bored and between projects, he had built a set of escalators leading from the living room to the upstairs hall. Sans appreciated the lack of effort, and Papyrus liked spending hours and hours going up the down escalator all day.

Sans came to a halt before the king and smiled, before reaching out with a hand and grabbing Papyrus by the scarf, stopping the kid in his tracks with an audible choke. Sans then bowed, forcing Papyrus to bow as well, before letting Papyrus go so he could get back to his airplane noises.

Standing before the king, Sans felt small all over again. Asgore was a mountain of a goat-man, thick-set, so tall he had to hunch to go through doors, and with a mane of a golden beard mixed in with his white fur. Despite this, he nearly always had an expression on his face like a lost lamb looking for someone to help him, and he spoke humbly and directly no matter who he met. No matter how much gold and silk and velvet he wrapped himself in, nothing could make Asgore even approach the definition of regal.

"King Dreemur, what brings you to the lab today," asked Sans, pleasant as he could muster.

"Good morning, Sans. Your father sent a message," said Asgore, "I believe he has some progress to show me?"

Sans' smile began to fade, he'd heard nothing from his father about Asgore visiting. He tried not to show his confusion on his face – Skeletons were, after all, very good at hiding their emotions – as he gestured grandly towards the entrance to the basement where Gaster's lab was.

"This way. Father is waiting for you."

"Thank you Sans."

"Papyrus!" cried Sans suddenly, and the young Skeleton froze, except for his hand, that held his long red scarf up and aloft, pretending to be blowing in some invisible wind as he made quiet 'whoosh whoosh' noises.

"Y-Yes?"

"Man the fort. We have royalty visiting. You're in charge of the royal guard."

Papyrus went almost starry eyed, dropping his jaw so wide Sans thought it might fall off. He saluted gravely, and then began to patrol the living room, muttering some kind of internal narration for his every action. Sans smiled and turned towards the entrance to the lab and walked towards the automatic door – another invention of a bored Dr. Gaster – and let it open for him.

"Watch your head, your highness," said Sans with a wink as he began down the stairs.

"Thank you, Sans," said Asgore, as ever, unaware of Sans' proclivity for puns, "Your brother is growing more and more every time I see him."

"Hah. He's still a little pipsqueak to me."

"Children," began Asgore gravely, ducking his head to enter the sliding door and descending the stairs carefully, "Children are treasures, aren't they?"

"Uh... I guess."

Nothing more was said after that. Sans simply led Asgore down into the laboratory proper, and after stepping through another, larger automatic door, they came to Gaster's workshop.

What dominated the room most was a large object in the center of the room, covered by a white sheet. Sans was vaguely aware of what it was, but wasn't sure of the specifics, and had no idea what it looked like. Sans stepped aside to let Asgore see, and meanwhile looked around for his father. The skeleton was nowhere to be found.

"Let me, uh, get Dr. Gaster for you, your highness," said Sans, "I'm sure he's around here somewhere."

"Oh? Who's there!" said a sudden voice from behind the massive machine.

In the next instant, W. D. Gaster appeared. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes, but he was nonetheless smiling. Upon seeing Asgore, his smile widened.

"King Dreemur! Yes, come in! I'm sorry. I was taking a little break and lost track of the time. Glad to see you got my message."

Sans looked his father over. His inky black suit jacket had been shed long ago. He wore only a grey turtleneck sweater with the sleeves rolled up, although there were still conspicuous stains from oil and grime upon it, and there was spotting upon the white of his radius and ulna, as well as all over his carpals. His pants were rumpled and wrinkled, as if he had slept in them, It was a rare moment for Sans, to see his father as anything but perfectly put together. It was strange.

"Sans, you should have told me we had a guest," said Gaster, annoyance clear to the other Skeleton, but lost upon Asgore, "I would have made myself presentable."

He rushed towards a chair, where a long white lab coat was slung over, and hurriedly pulled it on, hiding the grime underneath the pristine white of the labcoat. Asgore smiled pleasantly.

"No need to be ashamed Dr. Gaster," he said, "I'm sure you've seen me in my more embarrassing moments."

"Right, well, uh..." said Gaster, shaken, before he pulled himself together, standing rod straight and regaining his composure, "King Dreemur. You have heard my proposals on the matter, and I would like to present my findings."

Sans, sensing he was no longer needed, began to walk away, but Gaster cleared his throat and he froze, before looking over his shoulder.

"Sans. Please stay. I will require your assistance."

"Oh. Right."

"Now, without further ado, I present to you my latest and greatest invention!"

He gripped a handful of cloth in his hands, and with a deft pull, the machine was revealed. Gaster spun the sheet around in a flourish, tossing it aside before extending both arms to present the device.

It seemed to Sans to resemble a tall, clear tube encircling a large metal platform and closed in on top by a plexiglass dome with blinking machinery inside of it. Bundles of thick wires ran from the top piece to the bottom platform, and from the bottom into the walls to power the device. The whole thing was ringed with blinking blue and yellow light, and sitting on top, like a crown, was the paradox engine, glowing bright blue. Sans was filled suddenly with apprehension at the sight of this device, remembering the traumatic experience of viewing himself in the past. He hoped his father knew what he was doing.

"King Dreemur, I would like to present a fully functional prototype of a time machine."

"Time... machine?" repeated the king, clearly nonplussed by what he was seeing, "what exactly is this, Dr. Gaster?"

"It's quite complex, I'm afraid. If I tried to explain, we would be here all day," said Gaster, knowing how long it would take for Asgore to finally get the concept, "Instead, I have prepared a little experiment that we can do together. Would that be acceptable?"

Asgore's brows drew together in concern, but his bemused smile never left his face. He shrugged his shoulders, and Gaster, smiling brightly, took that as an affirmation. Excited, he gestured for Sans to follow and then walked on towards a workshop table. Sans followed, and no sooner did he approach his father when Gaster pushed a small camcorder into his arms. Sans stared at it, and then stared up at Gaster.

"Your highness," said Gaster, gesturing for Sans to approach the king, "This camera is perfectly normal, with no tricks. Sans will show you."

Doing as his father said, Sans opened up the camcorder as he approached Asgore, He held up the camera for the boss monster, and he had to bend over and crane his neck to see the device in the short skeleton's hands. They both looked in and saw that there was a slot for a VHS tape to fit inside, but the slot was empty.

"No tape?" asked Asgore.

"Not yet," said Gaster, "After we do this experiment, I am going to ask you to supply a tape of your own and record yourself. Do not concern yourself with that. Now, Sans, place the camera inside the chamber. I will set the time coordinates from the console."

Sans had a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but knew that now was not the time. Putting on his most charming smile for the sake of King Dreemur, he approached the imposing machine and looked for a way to open it. He pressed a button marked 'Hatch Open' and, with a sudden billowing cloud of steam, the clear plastic slid aside, giving Sans access to the chamber within. Carefully, Sans closed the camcorder's tape deck, placed it into the center of the chamber, and backed out, closing the hatch.

"Now, please observe, King Dreemur. I am going to send the camera forward in time," said Gaster, before he quickly typed something into a console and pulled a large lever, "Energy at maximum. Get ready! There is going to be an extreme photonic disturbance, so prepare yourselves."

Sans backed away, frightened by the sudden hum of the machine powering up. It took the device several seconds to charge, but once it did, the paradox engine on top began to blink its blue light off and on quickly. All of a sudden, sparks flew from the machine, causing Sans to worry whether the machine was malfunctioning. However, Gaster was unconcerned. He watched the camcorder within the tube with rapt attention.

Soon, the camcorder began to float, and Gaster let out an audible laugh. The very air within the machine began glowing soon after, crackling with energy, before the machine started to pop and sizzle.

"Dad, is everything okay?" cried Sans over the noise of the machine. Gaster simple looked over and audibly winked, continuing to laugh wildly.

All of a sudden, there was a bright flash of white light. Sans was surprised and fell over backwards shielding his eyes. However, a large, kindly hand on the small of his back eased his fall. He looked over and saw Asgore smiling down at him. The apprehension was clear on his face, but he was clearly remaining positive. He helped Sans back to his feet, before looking back to the machine.

The camera was gone and the machine was empty. Gaster's laughter was dying down as he gestured wildly towards the tube.

"You see? It's gone!"

"Where is it?"

"The future!" he cried madly, "Specifically, it is currently inhabiting where it will be twenty-four hours from now in a different timeline."

"So... tomorrow it's going to just kind of... poof back into existence?"

"No, King Dreemur. Time travel does not work that way," said Gaster, launching into an explanation, "You see, it's impossible for us to travel within our own timeline. Changing ones own past and observing one's own future irreversibly changes both, you see? If a timeline changes then you are no longer within your own timeline. There are an infinite number of possible timelines in the multiverse, differing either so slightly that it is imperceptible to the eye – perhaps a raindrop fell slightly to the left, but otherwise landed in the same puddle – to the drastic – people dying at different points in their lives, differing levels of success or failure... right now there is a timeline where this experiment failed catastrophically and all three of us were killed in a massive explosion, for example. I looked in on it on the time window."

Asgore did not seem very comfortable with this explanation. "So where is the camcorder?"

"It is currently experiencing what the camcorder would have experienced in 24 hours in a timeline where it did not travel through time. Observe."

From within the pocket of Gaster's lab coat, he produced a small, hand held device. It seemed to be some kind of small, rectangular card with a little bit of thickness to it. It had a small gray button in the middle, which Gaster hovered his thumb over.

"When I press this switch, the camcorder will return. Ready?"

Asgore nodded his head, before covering his eyes. Sans did not. His curiosity overwhelmed his fear, and he watched as Gaster pressed the switch, and braced himself for another flash of light.

However, there was no flash. Strangely, there was an odd noise, like the bark of a very annoying dog, and in the next instant the camcorder was simply back on the platform as if it had never left. Asgore opened his eyes, confused.

"Was that it?"

"That's it. It takes far less power to bring something back, after all. It's just a matter of rubber-banding you back to your proper place in your own personal chronology. I activate the process by using this Memory Card. It's a crude device, but it serves its purpose by SAVING the traveler's position in their anchor timeline and bringing the traveler back here when activated. However, look."

Gaster opened the hatch. The steam billowed out once again, filling and obscuring the vision of everyone watching. When the steam cleared, Gaster was smiling, holding up the camcorder to King Asgore.

"I sent the camcorder to tomorrow morning. Earlier today you would have taken this camcorder home, supplied a video tape, and taped yourself a message. This camcorder has experienced that."

"I'm going to record a message?"

"You still might, yes," said Gaster, "You see, the camcorder still exists in that timeline – a camcorder has no SOUL after all, it can't enact any change on the timeline it visited – this camcorder simply... inhabited the place of that camcorder for a brief moment, long enough for you to record your message. Observe."

His smile growing with every moment, Gaster pressed the switch which opened up the tape deck. His smile instantly fell when he looked inside. Asgore seemed perplexed. Sans wished his father and the king weren't so tall so he could see what was wrong.

"Where is it?" asked Gaster, looking up at Asgore, "Where's your message?"

"Uh... I don't know?" he answered, before pointing into the tape deck, "L-look, there's a note."

"A... note..." muttered Gaster, before he reached into the tape deck and withdrew a yellow post-it. He stared at it for a solid minute, before he rolled his eyes and laughed. Sans had a clear view of the note.

It said; DON'T FORGET TO BUY TAPE. VERY IMPORTANT. GASTER EXPERIMENT.

Asgore seemed embarrassed, "Oh. I guess I forgot."

"Yes, it seems that way," said Gaster, "Why did you hide the post-it note inside the tape deck? Were you really going to look in there again?"

"I... I don't know. I guess I thought – will think...? It's a good place."

Gaster sighed, and shook his head. He was pleased, despite the experiment's failure. There was still a positive result. He handed the camcorder to Asgore.

Asgore spoke, trying to be helpful, "So, for this to work, tomorrow I need to remember to get tapes, and then I can record a real message for you. Will the experiment work then?"

Sans smiled, "But if you remembered to buy tapes, then Dad would have opened the tape deck and found a tape, right?"

"And see?" said Gaster, taking up the explaination "That is what I was talking about. The camcorder experiencing the future has irrevocably changed the future of our timeline. Tomorrow, the King Dreemur of this timeline, reminded of what happened here, will remember to actually record a message, or at the very least, will write a different note if he forgets again."

Asgore seemed to be struggling to keep up with all of this science talk, "I'm sorry. I'm a little confused. How does this help us destroy the barrier?"

"Well, at the moment," said Gaster, his smile fading slightly, "It doesn't. Not yet. There's one last hurdle to overcome."

"A... hurdle?"

"Yes. Tell me, King Dreemur. Have you ever heard of a substance called DETERMINATION?"

"Determination? You mean, like, the will to keep going?"

"No, no, no. That's determination. I'm talking about DETERMINATION. Please notice that I am speaking in all upper-case letters. It is a substance that exists in trace amounts within SOULs. Monster SOULs have amounts so miniscule that it is barely detectable, but human SOULs have it in abundance. Lower-case determination can activate the latent abilities of upper-case DETERMINATION, but it is not a necessary component. It may possibly be one of the most powerful substances in the known universe."

"What does it do?"

"Everything," explained Gaster, beginning to saw the air with his hands as he spoke, "Humans have so many abilities we cannot even hope to understand due to the nature of their DETERMINATION. You see, the very first thing I tried to do when my machine was ready was try to send something to the moment when the barrier was first erected. However, the trip failed. According to my calculations, the reason is because the seven human magicians who erected the barrier had between them so much DETERMINATION that it completely scrambled the signal, making it impossible for anyone to travel to that time. That appears to be DETERMINATION's main use – it allows humans to naturally control the flow of time."

Asgore scoffed, "Humans can't do that, can they? I never saw that during the war."

"Very few of them become aware of it, and that's because everyone on the surface has DETERMINATION. They can't use their abilities while everyone else's DETERMINATION holds them in check. However, in an environment where there is either very little DETERMINATION or none at all, like the Underground, a human could possibly have access to unlimited control over their personal timeline for as long as they stay within the underground."

"This all sounds quite far-fetched, Dr. Gaster."

"The point is that time travel is impossible in timelines where there exists too many humans or beings with human-like levels of DETERMINATION. The Underground exists within a quantum bubble where its timelines do not intersect directly with timelines of the surface, and so we can time travel freely within the underground, but cannot travel to a time before we were entrapped, nor can we skip ahead to a moment where we finally break the barrier ourselves due to the overwhelming DETERMINATION that floods in from the Underground's timelines becoming directly linked to the Surface's timelines. The paradox engine's safeguards would activate and the travel would be impossible."

"Which means we can't use this to break the barrier?"

"Now, I didn't say that, King Dreemur. We can't directly destroy the barrier, no, but we can use this technology to find ways around it. Mark my words, your highness, time travel is the answer. I merely have to figure our how."

Sans looked up at Asgore. His face was awash in confusion, and he seemed dizzy. He shook his head, and crossed his arms.

"This is... all quite amazing," said Asgore, "I don't understand a lick of it, but... well, I trust you Dr. Gaster. I always do. At the moment, you are our best hope."

"Thank you, your highness."

"Now if you will excuse me, I must be going. Thank you for this presentation. You have given me much to think about. I will be sure to remember to buy a tape! Maybe that will help next time we do this experiment, I guess?"

"You are very welcome, King Dreemur," said Gaster, who understood that it was useless to try to explain that buying a tape for the camcorder would be useless at this point in time. He gestured to Sans, palm up and directed him towards Asgore, "Please show the king to the door, Sans."

"Aye, aye, Dad," said Sans, before he began to walk up the stairs, leading King Asgore back up the steps.

–

With King Asgore out the door, Sans finally found some time to think. All this talk of some magical substance that lets humans do anything, time travel, and all of those other insane things his father said were weighing down on him. He walked slowly back towards the entrance of the lab. Was this all the right thing to do? His father talked so casually about changing timelines and toying with fate, and Sans couldn't help but be uncomfortable with it. Was it really so important that Asgore record that message? What if it wasn't just a video tape? What if it was something bigger? If someone simply went back and stole something, and then returned to the point where that thing was never stolen, is that still theft? What if someone took a life, and then went back like it never happened?

Sans was halfway down the stairs when he heard his father's gentle snoring. Clearly, the man had stayed up all night putting the finishing touches on the device for Asgore's benefit. Sans was a big fan of sleep, and so he decided not to disturb his father. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, before turning back up the stairs. He could ask him questions in the morning. After all, they have all the time in the world now, don't they?

However, when Sans took a step up, he froze when he heard a little peal of childish laughter coming from within the lab. He turned his head, eyes wide. He had not seen Papyrus upstairs.

Filled with a sudden, crazed fear, Sans turned and ran back down the stairs, calling his brother's name. When he slammed open the door to the lab, he could see his father sitting in a rolling chair, bolt upright with arms crossed, but nodding his head in sleep. Within the machine, he could see Papyrus pulling the door closed with himself inside. Already, the machine was beginning to hum to life.

"Papyrus! Get out of there!" yelled Sans, "Dad! Dad, wake up!"

"W-wha...?" Gaster said as he startled awake.

Papyrus, as soon as he noticed Sans begin to rush towards the machine, pressed himself up against the back of the clear tube. His long red scarf was tied to the lever of the time machine, most likely so the young skeleton could reach the controls designed for the much taller Gaster, and so Papyrus was standing in just his striped shirt and shorts.

"Get out of there right now, Papyrus!"

"No!" the young skeleton cried, "I won't, you can't make me!"

"It's dangerous!" screamed Sans, beating a fist against the clear plastic, "Please! Get out of there!"

Gaster stood suddenly, realizing what was going on. He ran up to the clear tube, but by the time he was there, the glow was already beginning. Papyrus was smiling in wonder as his body was surrounded in the pale blue glow which grew in intensity.

Sans, desperate, ran over to grab Gaster's chair, picked it up, and ran forward to smash the machine. However, Gaster stopped him, grabbing hold of the chair before he could throw it.

"No! It's already started. Breaking it now could scatter his atoms across the entire multiverse."

"But he's trapped in there! What do we do?"

Before Gaster could answer, the flash reached its peak, and both of them had to shield their eyes. When it faded, the tube was empty. There was a tense silence. Neither of them breathed. They simply stared at the empty space where Papyrus was standing only moments before.

"Dad! Quick, bring him back!" said Sans, coming to his senses first, tears forming at the corners of his eyes, "Bring him back!"

"R-right, right!" said Gaster, his voice shaky, as he patted himself down for the Memory Card. Panic began to come over his expression however. He checked each pocket multiple times, and then rushed over to the workbench. He held his forehead in his hands. "It's... it's not here."

"It's not...? What do you mean it's not here?"

"It's... It's just gone," said Gaster, before realization lit up his face and he turned to stare at the time machine, "Papyrus. He must have taken it with him. He can't come back unless he presses that button. That's the only device that holds this universe's address."

Sans was silent, wondering if Papyrus might choose to come home on his own once he became bored or scared. Or maybe he just didn't realize what the Memory Card was for. Either way, Sans's face lost all trace of its fear, and lit up with determination, and he marched over to the computer console.

"Can we tell where he went?"

"We... we can pinpoint a timeline, and a general window. We can't be specific about dates, however. The further forward or backward you get, the less precise my instruments are."

"That's fine," said Sans, before he whipped off his lab coat and threw it on the floor. Gaster picked it up by instinct, used to his messy son leaving his things everywhere. Sans then marched up to the time machine and opened the hatch.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going after him. It's time travel, right? No matter how long he stayed out there, if he was going to press that button and come back, he would have been back by now. Something's wrong. I have to go after him."

"B-but..."

"You're the one who knows how to operate the thing, so I have to go, right?"

Gaster was quiet, but he knew that his son had a point. He gave a deep sigh, before beginning to read coordinates off of the computer screen, and typed in some quick corrections.

"He went twelve years into the future. Hopefully by then you two still live close by one another."

"We have to. I can't lose Papyrus," said Sans, stepping into the tube and closing it behind him, "Ready."

"There's... there's no telling what will happen, Sans. I've never tested this on a live subject before."

"I don't care!" yelled Sans, "Do it!"

Knowing it had to be done, Gaster clenched his eyes shut and pulled the switch, causing Sans' world to begin to glow blue in rising intensity, until he was blind to the world.


	3. Chapter 3

Cold sweat ran down Sans' forehead. He sat bolt upright, and felt an impact as he bumped his head into the ceiling. He laid back down, finding a soft pillow with his head, and held his aching forehead in his hands. He opened his eyes for the first time, and realized he was lying down in bed, a quilt tucked half over his legs and half hanging off the side. He looked up, and saw the ceiling, only a few feet from his face. He was high up.

The morning air felt strangely frigid, as if he'd left the air conditioning on too high. He shivered a little. Not out of cold, but from the strange unfamiliarity of the situation.

To get his bearings, he reached up to the ceiling and placed his hands flat. It was maroon in color. He stared at his hands. They seemed bigger somehow. He then reached down and felt along his body. His bones were rougher and larger, and he felt some unfamiliar aches in them as he moved. Finally, he felt over his face. The crack in his forehead he had suffered some weeks before was completely healed.

Carefully, he rolled over, taking in the unfamiliar room. His bed was a bunk bed, and he inhabited the top bunk set against the back wall of the room. The rest of the room was bisected neatly in two, with the bed denoting the center line. One half was neat and tidy, with action figures set in organized rows on a long table at one end, and with a black flag with skull and crossed bones pinned to the wall. The other half had clothes, fast food containers, and other assorted debris strewn everywhere. It was clear that two people lived in this room, and the familiar nature of the messy half let Sans know that one of those people was himself. He hung his head over the side of the bunk bed and saw that the bottom bunk had been modeled in the shape of a hot rod red race car. It was then that he knew that he shared this room with Papyrus.

"Papyrus?" he called out, but there was no answer.

He threw off his covers and jumped down off the top bunk. He stumbled a bit, unused to how weak his knees were. He looked down at himself. He was wearing boxer shorts and a white undershirt, and he looked so much older.

"Of course," he muttered, reminding himself, "Twelve years. This is who I am in twelve years."

He stretched his legs to try to ease the ache in them, and once he was satisfied, he explored his closet. He was struck by how many winter clothes he seemed to have. He seemed to have nothing but hooded coats and sweaters. He chose a coat which seemed like it would be too large for him, and was surprised when it fit perfectly. He then put on a pair of pants and threw on a pair of sneakers, too much in a hurry to even worry about socks.

He ran out the door to his and Papyrus' room, finding himself in a narrow hallway. There was one other door, and a staircase leading down.

"Dad?" He called, approaching the door, and knocking. There was no answer, and so Sans opened the door to peek inside.

The sight of his father's room was almost familiar. He had the same fancy four-poster bed he had in his room upstairs of the lab, as well as his finely carved wooden chests of drawers to keep his suits, and there was a row of expensive leather shoes at the foot of the bed, with a shoehorn laid over them, but the shape of the room was different from their home in their own time. It reminded Sans of a dream. Everything was so familiar, but it was also simply wrong in a way he couldn't put his finger on.

He closed the door, and turned to head downstairs. As soon as he did, he realized why if felt so cold here.

He found himself in a living room, where the front door was flanked by two tall windows. Outside he could see snow falling, and evergreen trees growing up in the distance. There was a couch beneath one of the windows, facing a large TV, and at the far end of the room, a dining table with something laid on it.

He approached the table, realizing that it was set just off of a sweet little kitchen. On the table, wrapped in cellophane, there was a plate of spaghetti and a post-it note.

"You missed breakfast. I'm making snowmen."

Sans wasn't hungry. The handwriting of the note was a loopy scrawl, not befitting the kind of person who would keep their room so clean. This was not the writing of an adult skeleton. It was the writing of a child. Papyrus was here in this time.

He zipped up his coat against the cold, and ventured out into the snow. He wondered for a moment whether they had made it out of the barrier, and if this was the surface. As he stepped outside, he looked up, and was disappointed to see the rock ceiling of Mt. Ebbot still enclosed them in, so high over their heads that it allowed room for atmosphere to form and snow to fall. This was Snowdin, the town just past Waterfall, near the ruins.

He looked around when he heard a loud, hearty laugh. He saw them, a tall skeleton wearing some kind of ridiculous home-made suit of white armor, and another figure hunched over in a wheelchair, unmoving.

"Nyeh heh heh!" laughed the tall skeleton, as he put the finishing touches on a large snowman, "This is the bad guy, a diabolical human come to hurt you, Daddy. Don't worry. I'll protect you!"

Sans stood and watched for a moment as Papyrus began to play-fight the snowman, raining karate chops and kicks down upon the snow until it collapsed back down to a pile of slush, all the while laughing merrily. Gaster watched, a pleasant smile on his face.

"I did it! I saved you!" cried Papyrus, falling to his knees and hugging Gaster around the neck. Gaster didn't move or react.

Sans finally decided to step forward.

"Hey, Papyrus."

"Oh! Sans!" said Papyrus, suddenly self-conscious. He pulled away from his hug. "I... I decided to give Daddy... I mean, Dad, some air. It's good for him."

"Uh huh."

"Anyway, did you like the Spaghetti? Undyne's been teaching me how to do it."

"I wasn't hungry."

"Well, that's no good, Sans! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! How do you expect to concentrate on calibrating your puzzles if you don't eat breakfast?"

"Sorry kiddo, I'm sure you'll patella me all about it."

Papyrus reacted predictably, waving his arms around and giving an exasperated cry in reaction to the terrible pun. However, in the next moment, he realized something, and looked over at Sans in sudden fear.

"W-wait. Did you call me Kiddo?"

Sans had a bad feeling. "Yeah. So?"

Papyrus was rattled and fell silent. Sans took the opportunity to walk forward and lay his hand on his father's shoulder. Gaster didn't react.

"Dad, maybe we should get you inside. It's cold out here," said Sans, before he waited for an answer.

"He can't hear you."

"Huh?"

Papyrus crossed his arms and frowned. "He... He doesn't move, or react to anything. You should have known that. You're not the Sans from now, are you?"

"W-what happened to Dad?"

"Dunno. I couldn't ask much without everyone finding out I'm not the real Papyrus," he said, "All I know is there was an accident with the CORE. I think Dad fell in. When he came back out he was like this. We moved here and we've been taking care of him ever since."

Sans' face fell. He gripped the handles of Gaster's wheelchair and began to pull him back into the house. Papyrus followed, not knowing what else to do.

"Sans. I... I don't want to go back."

"That's tough, Kiddo. You have to."

Once Gaster was comfortable in front of the TV in the front room, Sans left him, heading back outside. Papyrus continued to follow.

"No! I mean I don't think I should go back. Daddy's here. He needs help. You... Sans... The other Sans is always sleeping too much and won't eat, and I think he's sad all the time. I can't leave them behind."

Sans rounded on Papyrus, "They aren't who you think they are, Papyrus. You can't think of them like that. That is not your Dad, and the other Sans isn't me."

"But... but they feel like you. It's just you guys in the future. I've been here for a long time now. They're used to me helping them."

Sans paused. "How long have you been here?"

"Uh... since, uh... Since Santa came!"

"What day is it now?"

"It's April fifteenth, I think."

"That... you've been here for four months?"

"I was scared at first, but... but Sans didn't seem to notice I was different from his Papyrus, and Dad was in his wheelchair, and I have friends here! Lots of friends! All the kids in Snowdin look up to me... well... they look up to Undyne, and I'm learning from Undyne, so they look up to me too. I'm gonna be a member of the royal guard! We're going to help the King break the barrier, just like Daddy wanted."

"This isn't what Dad wants. Dad is sitting in his lab right now, terrified. He thinks he's never going to see you again."

"That was a long time ago. He sees me again. I grow up with him, and we move to Snowdin, see?"

"That's this Papyrus and his Dad. Our Dad is in another timeline."

Papyrus seemed confused, and wrung his hands together, unsure suddenly. "W-well... well maybe..."

"There is no maybe about it. We have to go back."

"Well, maybe I don't want to go back!"

Sans was struck silent by this, giving Papyrus the courage to keep talking.

"Y-you and Daddy are always working, and you never let me come down and help. Daddy never comes up to play with me anymore. I don't have any friends, all the kids in town make fun of me..."

"That's... that isn't..."

"You and Daddy always talk about stuff I don't understand. Sometimes I would sneak down to try to listen and get what it was you were always doing downstairs. That night, though, when you were explaining it to the king, I knew what you were talking about. Daddy said that machine makes you time travel, so I did. I went into the future, and in the future I'm a big hero! I'm the Great Papyrus. I make puzzles all day, and train with Undyne all night, and every morning I cook spaghetti for you and Daddy. I... I love it here. I'm taller than you!"

"And what about the Papyrus who was here before you? The one you replaced?"

Papyrus paused suddenly, "R-replaced?"

"Yes. For the past few months, the Papyrus who lived here before you has been gone. That is the real Papyrus of this timeline."

"But that's me. I'm him. Aren't I?"

Sans reached up to tap on Papyrus' skull, "In here, you are my Papyrus. My little pipsqueak brother who's always playing superhero and getting annoyed at my dumb jokes, right?"

"... Yeah. I am."

"But what about out here?" said Sans, touching Papyrus on the arm, "Is this you? This isn't your body. You stole this body away from the Papyrus who had it before you. The Papyrus who lived all those memories you only know second-hand. Is this right? Was this a good thing to do?"

"I... I only..." began Papyrus, looking down at his hands. He took one of the big red mittens off and stared at the bones. They were long and delicate, and so unlike the hands Sans had come to know before. "I wanna stay here! I want to be their Papyrus. Nothing bad happened yet."

"You can't."

"Says you!" yelled Papyrus, stuffing his hand back into the mitten, "I can do whatever I want here! You can't stop me!"

"Papyrus..."

"No!" cried Papyrus, reaching out and pushing Sans hard. Sans fell backwards, surprised, and landed in the snow. "You can't make me come back! I don't want Daddy to ignore me anymore!"

"But kiddo..."

"NO! I'm not a kid here!"

With that Papyrus drew back an arm and opened his hand wide. A large, white bone materialized out of thin air, and when he threw it down at the prone Sans, the shorter skeleton just barely dodged out of the way. It crashed into the ground, kicking up snow and soil and leaving a mark in the ground.

"Papyrus, what are you doing?" cried Sans, scrambling to his feet, frightened.

"I told you. Undyne trains me. I'm powerful here, more powerful than you. You can't stop me!"

Papyrus threw another bone, this one low, forcing Sans to jump over it. Once again it skidded to a stop, leaving a mark. Sans looked back. He was astonished at the force with which his brother could use his bone attacks. Back in their own time, their father hadn't even taught him how to manifest bones yet, and Sans had only just started learning. There was no way he could win against this Papyrus.

"I'm the older brother, Kiddo," said Sans, trying to be brave, "If you can do it, I can do it."

With that, Sans tried his best. He drew back, sending a bone attack along the ground. It was white, and small, and knocked into Papyrus' shin. Sans was astonished to see Papyrus' life bar hovering over his head barely go down by a sliver. It had only done one damage.

"Nyeh-heh-heh! Sans is weak!" said Papyrus, laughing, "He's lazy! He never exercises! He just sleeps and eats hamburgers. He can't do the things I can do. Like this!"

Papyrus held out his arms. This time, a halo of bones began to circle around him, before peeling off and flying towards Sans. The bones were blue, and Sans knew enough to stay perfectly still. The bones swished by him, and he could feel the wind they kicked up. Still, he didn't flinch, and stood his ground against the attack. However, in the next instant something went wrong.

He suddenly felt heavy, too heavy. The sudden weight he felt pushing down on him was too much to bear, and he collapsed down to his knees, and then to his stomach. Everything was tinged with a soft, blue glow.

"You're blue now," said Papyrus, "That's my attack."

"K-kiddo," Sans struggled to say, "Papyrus! Please stop!"

A bone was already in Papyrus' hands, ready to launch at his brother, "Why should I? You just want me to be unhappy! You just want me to go back to being bored and sad all the time! Well, I don't want to, okay? I don't want to be sad! I don't want Daddy to ignore me. I want Daddy to need me. I want you to need me. I want to be this Papyrus!"

With that, Papyrus threw the bone. It spun through the air heading straight for Sans' face. He tried to get up, to dodge out of the way, but he was too heavy. No matter how much he moved, he returned to his prone position on the floor. All he could do was cry out for Papyrus to stop.

"I need you, Papyrus!" Screamed Sans, trying to plead with his brother, "I need you!"

With that, the bone knocked into Sans' face, and Sans' world was alive in pain. He could feel his life bar draining quickly, and by the horrified look on Papyrus' face, he could tell he had done more damage than he intended. Sans felt the blue attack fade away, and he could struggle to his hands and knees. He felt his face, where the bone had struck him. When he pulled his hand away, there was a fine powder left behind on his fingertips. He was suddenly frightened.

"P-papyrus..."

The tall skeleton dove to the ground suddenly, holding his brother in his arms. Sans felt himself fading away, no matter how he tried to hold on. Was he really this weak in the future? One hit and he's already on death's door?

"Sans. Sans, no. I didn't mean it. I didn't want to... Sans, don't be hurt. Please."

"Y-you got me, kiddo."

Tears were forming in Papyrus' eyes. Sans could feel the wetness fall onto his face. He realized his vision was fading away.

"No! Sans. Stay awake!" cried Papyrus, shaking his brother. Sans' vision began to return, but only slightly. Everything was getting dark.

"P-papyrus. You have to understand. I love you. Dad loves you. We... we do what we do to try to... make the best world we can for you. Don't you get it?"

"I... I..." Papyrus was speechless. He didn't understand what he had done, but he knew it was his fault.

"You have to go back. You have to... to see Dad. He's alone without us."

"Alone..."

"I-I don't know what happens if you die while time traveling," said Sans, "I'm scared Papyrus."

"No! You can't die."

"I... I love you, Papyrus..."

"Stay with me! Stay here! You have to!"

"You know how much I love you?"

"H-how much?"

"A skele-ton."

With that, Sans could feel his body begin to turn to dust. Bit by bit, his fingers and toes began to go numb, and then his arms and legs. He could still see Papyrus. He was fumbling with something in the pocket of his white armor.

"Stop it Sans! Please, Stop!" screamed Papyrus just before Sans' vision went dark. He could feel his SOUL beginning to break.

However, before the cracks could shatter his Soul, he saw a white flash, and then felt his entire being disappear into nothingness.

–

Sans startled awake, sitting up rod straight. He could hear sobbing, and he looked around. He was inside the time machine again, lying curled up on the bottom platform. Papyrus, young again and holding the Memory Card in his hand, was wracked with tears as he stared at Sans. Sans looked down at his hands and feet, and saw that he was still in one piece, alive and well. He felt his forehead, and saw that the scar was still there. He was back, and he was still alive.

"Sans!" screamed Papyrus, before he dropped the Memory Card and threw his arms around his brother, letting himself melt into a terrified puddle.

The hatch opened. Their father was there, looking relieved, and he fell to his knees and encircled both of his sons in a hug.

"Papyrus, Sans. You're both alright."

"Y-yeah," said Sans, still shaken from his brush with death.

"S-s-sans. I'm so s-sorry," blubbered Papyrus in between coughs and sobs, "I... I'm S-sorry."

Sans thought back – or was it forward? Was the Sans of that timeline still dying? What would that Papyrus think, to suddenly find himself with his dying brother in his arms. What was going to happen there? Had his brother really murdered someone? The more he thought about it, the more he frowned. They had ruined a life by meddling in that timeline, and there was no way for them to fix it.

"It's... it's okay, Kiddo," said Sans. It was all he could say, "I'm... I'm still here. I'm still Sans. I couldn't leave yet. You woulda been bonely without me."

"Th-th-thats..." began Papyrus, before he sniffled, and cried out, beating his fists weakly on Sans' ribcage, "That's awful! I hate you!"

"I know it is, kiddo," said Sans.

Looking around, Sans saw Papyrus' scarf on the ground nearby, and he pulled away from Gaster to pick it up.

"Here, Kiddo. You dropped this."

He handed the scarf over to his brother, but realized too late that Papyrus was already wearing the scarf, or at least a scarf. One that was the same color, make, and model, but was older, more worn, and stained with pasta sauce. Papyrus stared at the scarf Sans held out for him and took it, while Gaster stared in astonishment.

"Two scarves?" Gaster said, "Did you bring that with you, from the future?"

"I... I guess," said Papyrus, winding the second scarf around the first one, so that his entire face was covered in red cloth.

Gaster's mind was blown, and Sans could see the wheels turning in his head. The smile was creeping up the corners of his mouth. He hugged them all over again.

"Alright you two. Lets... lets go upstairs. Sans. You can tell me all about what happened once you're ready. We should have breakfast. It's still morning isn't it?"

"I-is it?" asked Papyrus, unsure of what day it even was.

"Yes. What would you two like? Anything at all."

"I... I want Spaghetti," said Papyrus.

Gaster was taken aback. He had never even fed his son Spaghetti before, but even so, he shrugged his shoulders.

"Alright. We can all go to the capitol and eat out. We'll all take a day, just for us," he said, hugging Sans and Papyrus to himself, "I... I'm never going to take either of you for granted ever again, I promise. From now on I'm going to make time for you, and we're going to be a perfect family. You'll see. I'll make it happen."

While he leaned into his father's hug, still trying to calm himself down from his experience with time travel, he couldn't help but hear an urgent darkness in his father's voice and in his smile. He felt uneasy all over again, but pushed the feeling down. He was home again, and he never wanted to leave.


	4. Chapter 4

"Does your monster haaaave..." said Papyrus, slowly, as he stared at the rows and rows of monster portraits all set up in a grid, "Horns?"

Gaster, a pleasant smile on his face, shook his head, "No."

"Darn!" cried Papyrus as he flicked down three portraits, leaving almost the entire cast of Underground Guess Who's generic monster denizens still a possibility.

Gaster, sitting up straight and tall at his end of the table, tapped his chin with a finger, before his smile widened, and he said, "Does your monster have three or more eyes?"

"Yes!" said Papyrus excitedly, and then began to make sounds of anguish once Gaster's graceful fingertips pushed down nearly the entire board, culling out everyone with only one or two eyes, and leaving him with five possibilities. "No! How did you know?"

"It was simply a safe guess, no matter the answer I would have been able to turn over several possibilities."

"Hmmmm," said Papyrus, beginning to sweat as he faced off against his most dangerous opponent yet, "Hmmmmmmm!"

Sans had been watching from across the room for a while, killing time before dinner was ready. Their father had taken to cooking again, and a quiche, well-adjusted and taken care of with good prospects for the future, was in the oven. It had been something of an overnight transformation ever since that night in the lab when Papyrus had disappeared into the multiverse. All of a sudden Gaster seemed to spend no time at all in the lab, and spent all day of every day playing games with Papyrus, cracking jokes with Sans, cooking dinner, and tucking them in at night. Gaster was better than his word. They were the perfect family.

Sans worried slightly about the state of the barrier, or about his father's position as the Royal Scientist, but he understood what was happening. They almost lost Papyrus thanks to that machine downstairs, and Gaster blamed himself. It made sense to take a break for a while to spend time with his sons, and Sans had to admit it was the happiest he had been in a long time.

There was a beep from the kitchen timer, and Gaster stood, holding up a finger. "We must pause the game, Papyrus. I must not neglect the Quiche. It is a grave responsibility."

"Ok Daddy," said Papyrus.

"I'll make sure the little bonehead doesn't cheat," Sans said, shooting a smug grin Papyrus' way.

"I don't cheat! I never cheat! The Great Papyrus is always an honorable opponent!"

"Whatever you say, Kiddo."

Gaster gave a chuckle at his kids antics before he turned and bustled off to the kitchen. The smell of delicious egg pie wafted through the room a moment later as the kitchen timer was turned off.

There was a moment of silence, while Papyrus stared hard at the backs of Gaster's Guess Who board, trying to divine who his person was, and Sans stared at Papyrus. After a second. Papyrus sat back and calmed down.

"Sans," he said, quietly.

"Yeah kiddo?"

"I feel... I feel bad."

Sans straightened himself out, frowning as he looked up at his brother. "Bad? Why?"

"Because... Because Daddy is a hero, right? But we aren't doing anything except playing games and being together. Doesn't Daddy need to help the king break the barrier?"

Sans' frown curled back up into a smile. "He was scared. He thought we were gone forever. I think he's just happy that we're here with him."

"But... but he's not just our Daddy, is he?" said Papyrus, "Being a hero means... means you gotta know who needs help the most, right? Doesn't the king – doesn't everyone need help more than we do? Daddy needs to break the barrier."

Sans had to take a moment to really take in what his brother had said. "That's very mature of you to say."

Papyrus couldn't help but smile a little, but he was still looking down at the table. Sans gave a little sigh, sinking down in his chair, relaxing. He thought that maybe Papyrus was thinking back – forward, maybe - to when he grows up to be some kind of hero in Snowdin, wearing that ridiculous thrown-together costume. Sans could see that Papyrus wanted to end up there, but wanted his father to be worthy of the same thing as well.

"And here I thought all you wanted was for Dad to play with you more."

"Well, I still want that!" cried Papyrus, "That's... that's why I feel bad. I want one thing for me, and I want another thing for him, but I know they can't both happen, can they?"

"Sometimes you can't get everything you want, kiddo," said Sans, "Something's gotta give."

"Yeah?"

"The question is are you gonna be shellfish or not?"

"D-don't you mean Selfish?"

"Nah, Papyrus. All you have to do is ask yourself, 'Water you going to do about it?'"

"Sans stop."

"Do you Sea what I mean?"

"Sans no."

"Maybe I need to be more Pacific."

"Ahhhhhh!"

"What's all this screaming about?" said Gaster as he came back into the room.

"Daddy! Sans is making ocean puns. Make him stop!"

Gaster smirked, "Why were you talking about the Ocean?"

"We weren't!" cried Papyrus, "He just started and he wouldn't stop."

"Well, bad form Sans," said Gaster, "It's not clever if you just bring up the Ocean out of nowhere."

"Sorry Dad," said Sans, "The pun just came to mind."

"It's quite all right," said Gaster, smiling, "And don't worry about it anymore, Papyrus, I'm sure he was only squidding."

Papyrus could not take it anymore. He fell out of his chair, onto the ground, and writhed about, suffering. He covered his face with his scarf to cover up the fact that he was smiling.

"You're all awful!"

Sans and Gaster both laughed merrily, and soon, even Papyrus joined in on their mirth, between calling them terrible people. Soon, however, Sans felt hunger pangs, which reminded him of his father's responsibility.

"Dad, is the Quiche finished?" said Sans, "I'm starving."

"Quiche?" said Gaster, his smile fading into confusion, "What Quiche?"

Sans paused, staring at his Dad, before he laughed, "Very funny, Dad. Didn't you just take the Quiche out of the oven?"

Gaster's face shifted from confusion, to a sudden horror. He stood with a hurried 'excuse me' and rushed back out of the room. Papyrus was still writhing about, and did not notice anything was wrong, but Sans knew better. Their father was fastidious, and took his responsibilities seriously. He would not have begun making a Quiche lightly. Sans stood and followed.

Gaster stood in the kitchen. He was wearing a white, frilly apron with a small, tasteful skull embroidered on the breast, and a pair of red oven mitts. He was holding the Quiche. The center was fine, but the edges were burned. He had left the Quiche for too long. He looked devastated.

"Dad?"

"S-Sans! Oh, I'm sorry, I must have lost track of the time," said Gaster, "I... I should be ashamed of myself. I ruined the Quiche."

Sans took a tentative step forward, "Dad. You were in here for something like ten minutes. What happened?"

"I... Nothing happened. It simply slipped my mind."

"That's not right," said Sans, "You're always so responsible. You never ruined a Quiche before."

"Everyone makes mistakes, Sans."

"You forgot," muttered Sans, realizing what was bothering him, "You forgot all about it. How could you forget about something you went into the kitchen to check on a few minutes ago?"

"I..." but Gaster said nothing more.

Sans' mind was racing. The pieces were falling together in his mind.

"Dad," he said, "Did you just come back from time traveling?"

Gaster's silence told him all he needed to know. Silently, he put the Quiche on the counter and took off his oven mitts, laying them gently beside his failed responsibility. He leaned against the counter, sighing deeply, and finally turned his head to look his son in the eye.

"Yes," said Gaster, "I remember now. The Quiche needed a few more minutes in the oven, and the game with Papyrus was on hold, so I thought I could... step out for a while."

"Step out?" asked Sans, "Where did you go? Have you done this before?"

"I do it sometimes, yes," admitted Gaster, "I still have to finish my research, but I don't want to miss a moment with either of you. This way I can have it both ways. I travel a few minutes into the future, and use that timeline to further my research non-stop, then return. It's like I never left, and I can bring my notes back with me. I have made leaps and bounds in exploring the boundaries of time!"

Sans' face fell. Usually he had been there whenever his father had made such leaps and bounds in his research.

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Sans, "You could have brought me with you. I could have helped."

"But you've been helping. Just the other day you... Oh."

Sans furrowed his brow. "That wasn't me. That was another Sans from another timeline."

"Yes, I suppose it was," said Gaster, "I just thought with the traumatic experience you and Papyrus had, perhaps you wouldn't have wanted to go again."

"Dad, I love that you're giving Papyrus and me so much attention, but I still want to help you break the barrier."

Gaster smiled and shook his head, still staring at the Quiche in incredulity, "Yes. You're right. Oh my, what are we going to do for dinner now? I feel like such a klutz."

"Well, there's all that dry spaghetti Papyrus made me buy. That's quick, and Papyrus will love it."

"Yes," said Gaster, "That makes sense. In the morning we can find this Quiche a good home. The responsibility was too great for me. Will you help me, Sans?"

Sans shrugged his shoulders, "If you promise after you put Papyrus to bed, we can go down into the lab. I want to see what you're working on."

Gaster laughed, smiling, "Yes. Fine. Let's get started."

–

That night, after Papyrus was cruising whilst he was snoozing, Gaster was good on his word, and led Sans down into the laboratory. Gaster seemed nervous as he did, wringing his expressive hands together. Sans tried to be nonchalant about it, but his father's mood made him wonder just what he was doing down here.

As they finished descending the stairs and the time machine came into view, Gaster's nerves seemed to get the better of him. He cleared his throat, standing up rail straight, before he began to talk, as much with his hands as with his words.

"Well, Sans. I should preface this by saying that... that what you see here cannot leave this room, do you understand?"

"Well, okay," said Sans, "Why?"

"You'll just have to trust me."

Gaster breathed deeply, before he walked over to a work table. Various tools were strewn about, and Sans noticed that a set of strange, bleached skulls of some creature were stacked all around a cylindrical object hidden beneath a sheet. Sans knew of those devices. They were invented by his father, a power conduit for monster SOULs, to focus and strengthen the power of their bullets. As far as Sans knew, they were his father's weapons of choice, but he had not needed to touch them since the end of the war.

"Dad," said Sans, "What's under the sheet?"

"The fruits of my research. Very promising, but..." Gaster trailed off, clearly nervous. He shook his head, and finally, gently lifted the sheet off of the object.

Sans' eyes went wide. Beneath the sheet, there was a glass case, vacuum sealed on the top and bottom by flat metal devices. Within, floating in the middle, and pulsing lightly in a haunting rhythm, was a heart, scarlet red, casting a light glow across the room. The sight of it made Sans uneasy.

"D-Dad," said Sans, suddenly afraid, "What's that?"

"That, Sans, is a human SOUL."

Sans twisted his neck to stared at his father suddenly. It was insane! It was impossible! Sans couldn't believe it. He shook his head, and turned back to stare anew at the pulsing of the SOUL.

"A SOUL..." muttered Sans. "H-how did you get it?"

"I must repeat myself, Sans. You must not allow news of this to leave this room, you understand? King Dreemur cannot know about this."

The desperation in his father's voice was not lost upon Sans, "Dad? What did you do?"

Gaster tried to smile. He began to pace around the room, touching different tools and surfaces to calm himself as he tried to find a way to explain.

"The truth is, Sans, it was Papyrus who inspired me. That scarf he brought back? I've analyzed it so much. It's perfectly identical to the one you bought for him weeks ago, except it is exactly twelve years older. A perfect replica of an object that already exists. It seems impossible... it should be impossible! It violates the laws of the universe, but even so, somehow Papyrus was able to bring an object back with him, smuggled into our timeline, interacting freely with itself, and automatically corrected for by the Paradox Engine."

"Uh huh?"

"Well, I got to thinking about what else I could try to replicate. I started small. I went minutes into the past to try to bring minor things back with me. Pencils, copies of my notes, things like that. It was perfectly fine – simple even! No ill effects, no matter how much I did it. If I could do that with objects, I started to wonder if I could do it with... with other things."

"You mean SOULs?"

"Precisely!" said Gaster, turning towards Sans and, in an unguarded moment, smiling a bit too widely to be altogether sane, "I knew where I could get a SOUL. It was years ago, before you were born. There was a human who fell into the underground."

"A human?"

"The King and Queen adopted them. He and Prince Asriel became inseparable, but... the child was troubled. They fell ill one day. It was... suspicious. King Dreemur denied it, but the symptoms pointed clearly to suicide."

Sans was silent. He could find nothing to say.

"What's more – and this is the part I'm sure you have learned from your history lessons – consumed with grief, prince Asriel absorbed the human's SOUL and crossed the barrier to deliver the human's body to their home town. When he came back he had sustained horrible injury, and died soon after. The SOUL was lost... until now."

"Now you have it," said Sans, "How."

"I simply..." began Gaster, but there was a catch in his throat. He hesitated, unable to meet his son's gaze. Eventually, he collected himself. "I simply traveled to a time before the child took poison, and... acquired it."

"Acquired...?" said Sans, his eyes widening, "You mean you... You killed the kid?"

"We need SOULs, Sans," said Gaster, "We need seven. That is the only way to break the barrier."

"But you... that's murder! How could you...?"

"It isn't like that, Sans!" said Gaster, "Look around you. Has anything changed? Events still played out as usual. The human is dead, the prince is dead, and the Dreemurs are still grieving. This is the real timeline. Those people in other timelines? You can't think of them as real, Sans. They are only illusions. They aren't us."

"Okay, fine, they aren't us," said Sans, "But they're still real! You said so. The other timelines are all possibilities that could have been where we ended up."

"Think about it Sans. Killing the child in that other timeline did not affect this timeline in any way, except that I can bring back the child's SOUL. He can be of use here."

"But... but no! This isn't right. All of this just for one SOUL?"

"But it isn't just one SOUL, Sans!" cried Gaster, trying desperately to explain, "Think! Every time I travel back, there is a new human child – a new SOUL – a new timeline! If I keep going back, I can keep collecting them. This one is just the first of many," said Gaster, pride sneaking into his voice as his hands clenched, the answer so close, "This is a troubled child who kills themselves anyway. They literally throw their SOUL away. I... We are simply picking up what they didn't want in the first place. We are saving them from themselves. Do you understand?"

For the first time, Sans did not understand what his father was saying. He didn't want to understand. He wanted to close his eyes, run away, and forget everything he had heard here. However, he simply stood, staring at the human SOUL.

Gaster continued, "Only six more, and we will be able to destroy the barrier. We will be free, and the cost is less than nothing."

"But what happens to the timelines where the kid is dead before he's supposed to die?"

"Irrelevant. I wish you would understand, Sans. All that matters is our research. We are on the brink! This is what we have been working towards this whole time."

"This sounds dangerous."

Gaster rushed towards his son, falling to his knees and clapping the young skeleton on the shoulders, squeezing the bones so hard Sans was almost afraid they might break.

"Science cannot balk in the face of danger, Sans! I know I taught you that much."

"You also taught us that Science was for helping people. Papyrus looks up to you. He wants you to keep going, to help make the world a better place for monsters, but... but this?"

"... I... I thought you would understand, Sans."

"I do! I do understand! I really do. I know you want to help free us, but... but I've seen the future too, you know. I saw the Gaster from the future. Something happened. He isn't himself. What if this is what leads to that?"

"You can't compare me to a version of me that doesn't exist yet. Any number of variables could have caused that. Observing that future could have irreversibly changed it."

"But we can't know for sure. Shouldn't we do more research? Find out for sure? Find out whether this... whether this is really the only option?"

"I have been researching this for years, Sans! Years!"

"Years? But... but... that's not right. It's only been a few weeks since you finished the machine."

Gaster did not listen. He simply went on, "There is no other way. DETERMINATION from a human SOUL is the only force strong enough to destroy the barrier, but I cannot travel anywhere with too much DETERMINATION. The human child is the only point in time where there is only a single human in the underground. I've explored the rest of the timeline. Other humans fall in the future but... but there is something else in the way, another being of DETERMINATION that I cannot detect. They tip the balance too much, and I'm unable to travel into that future."

Sans couldn't speak for a moment. He was in shock. This plan of his father's, it was murder... but was it really? If you kill someone, and then travel to a timeline where that person is no longer dead, is that murder? Sans began to wrap his mind around the concept. It was attractive. The Sans in the timeline he and his brother had visited was dead, after all, and Papyrus was the one who killed him. Wasn't it better to believe in the reality where is brother wasn't a murderer? Perhaps those people really were illusions.

But even thinking in that way didn't stop Sans from remembering the numb horror of death, feeling his limbs turn to dust, and feeling his own SOUL on the verge of breaking. How could he condone killing anyone, when dying felt like that?

"I want to help you, Dad," said Sans, "but... but I can't."

"Sans..." said Gaster, tightening his grip, "Please."

Sans shrugged off his father's hands and pulled away, unable to meet his father's gaze. He turned away and walked on quickly, eager to get away from here, and to get away from the red light of the human SOUL.

"I have to go say goodnight to Papyrus," Sans said, suddenly, "You... you do whatever you want. I won't stop you."

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" said Gaster, "You promised."

"Yeah. I did," he answered, regretting it already.

–

A kiss on the forehead woke Papyrus from his slumber. He rubbed his eyes and struggled to open them, and saw Sans looking down at him, tears in his eyes.

"Sans?" said Papyrus, "What's going on?"

"Nothing," said Sans, "Goodnight kiddo. It's just a bad dream."

"O-oh. Okay."

Sans ran a hand over the top of Papyrus' skull, and the younger skeleton shifted himself, rolling over and closing his eyes again. Sans watched his little brother fall back to sleep through blurred vision, and wiped his face on the side of his hand.


	5. Chapter 5

It was noon by the time Sans began to stir. He rolled over, spied the clock on the wall, and turned his back on it, closing his eyes and going back to sleep. There wasn't anything for him to do right now. No great project to help come to light. No grand dream for the future to plan for. There was just Sans, and his bed, and escaping that hollow feeling inside.

It had been a three days since he had learned the truth of what his father was doing down in the laboratory, and since then, the two of them had hardly even looked at one another. Gaster tried several times to make conversation, but Sans simply ignored it. There was nothing left to be said.

Pressing his head into the pillow, Sans curled his legs up to his chest. He was comfortable at least. He could stay in bed all day. It would be nice. He wouldn't have to think about anything. Just be warm and comfortable, and let his father do whatever he liked. The barrier would be open soon, and the monsters would be free. He tried to convince himself that this was good, that it was justified, but he couldn't bring himself to it. He kept doing the arithmetic in his head, but he couldn't make a life – even a life that would never affect him or anyone in his timeline – worth the happiness of all monsters.

He flinched when he heard the door open. He was almost asleep, almost back into mindless oblivion, but he knew this would come sooner or later. The first day, Papyrus was bombastic and angry, telling Sans to get off his butt and play with him. The second day, Papyrus was kinder, trying to butter up his brother so Sans would get out of bed and play. It was day three, and Sans wondered what Papyrus would try now.

"Sans," said Papyrus, "Are you okay?"

Sans didn't answer. He tried to pretend he was asleep. Papyrus didn't fall for it. He climbed up into the bed with his brother and, in a move that Sans didn't expect, forced himself under the covers and cuddled up to Sans.

"What are you doing?" mumbled Sans.

"Iunno," was Papyrus' answer.

"Get out of my bed. I'm trying to sleep."

Papyrus hugged himself closer to Sans, and said, "You've been sleeping all day. It's time to get up."

"Go away."

But Papyrus would not go. He just closed his eyes and kept pushing himself against Sans. Sans could feel the young skeleton's shoes brushing against the back of his legs, and rolled his eyes. Soon, he shook his head and sat up.

"Papyrus..."

"C'mon, get up Sans."

Sans looked over and saw the wide eyes and frowning face of his brother. The sheer worry he could see was staggering. He shook his head, and considered rolling back over, but he just sighed and forced himself to smile.

Papyrus wasn't fooled, "I'm tired of you sleeping all day, Sans."

"You're... tired?"

Papyrus opened his mouth wide, and his eyes bugged out, "See? You made me do a pun! This is serious!"

Sans' smile crept up, filling his face, and the sight of it seemed to give Papyrus courage.

"You're sad about something," he said, "You were sad yesterday too."

"It's nothing big, kiddo."

"Well, if it's nothing big," said Papyrus, crossing his arms, "Then it doesn't really mattress anyway."

Sans laughed, and Papyrus groaned at himself. Sans curled his arm around his little brother's shoulders and sat up, leaning against Papyrus and letting the kid encircle him in a hug. Sans rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the other hand, and shook his head slightly. Maybe he had slept enough.

"Alright, alright," said Sans, giving his brother's shoulder a squeeze, "What do you want to do?"

"Well, Daddy said he was going to be in the lab all morning."

"Did he?"

"I told him what I told you. I decided I want him to be a hero for everybody, and not just for me."

Sans went silent, but then forced himself to smile. He couldn't tell Papyrus what their father's heroics truly entailed. He would never be so cruel.

"So," Papyrus went on, "He's gonna work a bunch today, and later on he said we're all going to get nice cream together."

"Leaving us the whole morning to play, right?"

"Well, we would have had the whole morning if you weren't such a lazy-bones."

"Sorry, sorry!" said Sans, throwing off the quilt and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, "Tell you what. Why don't we go into the capitol and shoot some hoops at the playground? It'll be good for both of us."

"Yay! Hoops!" cried Papyrus, leaping out of bed and tearing across the room, making a wide circle. He was fully dressed already.

"Well, I gotta get clothes on, so get out of here. We'll go in a few minutes, okay?"

"Okaaaaaay," Papyrus was screaming as he ran out the room. His voice faded away into the distance.

Once Papyrus was gone, Sans let his brave face drop. Despite everything, he still wanted to just climb back into bed and curl up, but he knew he couldn't. They would go shoot some B-ball, and even if Sans didn't have fun, Papyrus would have fun, and that was all that mattered.

–

The little park in the capitol was nestled between two tall buildings and enclosed by a chain link fence. There were trees and a small patch of grass there, sustained by magic in the absence of sunlight, and in the middle there were a couple half-court basketball hoops, where monster children could play.

Sans and Papyrus were walking hand-in-hand through the park, the basketball under Sans' arm. He looked around. It was a quiet day. Those girls who were always rooting through the garbage and smoking cigarettes in the alley weren't there today to make fun of Papyrus. It was just the two of them, the ball, and the hoops. Sans let go of Papyrus' hand once they came to the court, and began to dribble the ball, smile on his face.

"Three points!" he cried as he suddenly jumped and threw the ball. It swished clean through the net, and Papyrus clapped wildly, before running after it.

"My turn, my turn!" Papyrus called out as he picked up the basketball. He began to dribble it clumsily with both hands, running in circles and making strange noises, as if every move he made was giving off some kind of laser beam blast. Sans made a token effort to take the ball away, but didn't really try much, and he left the hoop wide open for Papyrus to throw the ball. He did, heaving it with both hands, smile plastered on his face. It barely got halfway up, and flew past the hoop, bouncing into the grass. Papyrus screamed and ran after it.

Sans' smile was genuine now. This was fun. It was just like old times. Papyrus was hopeless, and any attempt to teach him just led to frustration. He had enough fun by throwing the ball aimlessly in the general direction of the hoop, and Sans was glad to let that happen.

Eventually, Sans managed to get the ball away from Papyrus before he could give it another weak toss, and decided it was time to show off a bit. He was short, but he had some moves. He weaved around the court, dribbling the ball, pretending to be assaulted on all sides by a strong offense trying to block his shots. He danced and turned around, displaying his best footwork as he approached the hoop, and finally, he gave a jump. He couldn't hope to reach the hoop for a dunk – he just wasn't tall enough – but he tossed up a perfect lay-up, and sank the basket.

"Wow!" cried Papyrus, "Sans! You're so cool!"

"Thanks Kiddo, c'mon, your turn! Piggyback!"

With that, Sans turned around and Papyrus, squealing out a high-pitched Nyeh-heh-heh, leaped onto his brother's back. Sans picked up the ball with one hand and held his brother's legs with the other, and when he passed the ball up to Papyrus, the kid took the ball eagerly, waving it up above his head.

"Ready?" said Sans, "Here we go!"

Sans, with Papyrus riding on his shoulders, began to run down the court. Papyrus' laughter echoed through the little park, and he readied himself to throw the ball at the hoop again. Sans stopped close enough for Papyrus to be able to throw, and the kid gave the mightiest toss he could.

The ball soared through the air. Sans was ecstatic. It was the best throw Papyrus had ever done, well on its way to touching the rim, or even maybe going in. Both skeletons watched with baited breath and wide smiles as the ball bounced on the rim, and then began to roll, circling the hoop. It was going to sink in!

However, there was a sudden black blur. Sans stepped back in surprise as a hand shot out and easily slapped the ball out of the basket, making it bounce violently away. A laugh rang out, and both Sans and Papyrus were speechless.

"Haha! You should have told me we were going to play basketball," said Gaster, shaking out his wrist, "I would have come with."

"Daddy?" said Papyrus, before he laughed again, not minding Gaster's epic denial, "Daddy!"

The young Skeleton climbed off of Sans' back, and ran towards their father, wrapping his arms around the older skeleton in a hug. Sans, however, did not move. He frowned, reminded of the reason for his funk. He stared at his father, taking in his face, and noticed something off.

Their father's face was almost the same as ever, except for two very conspicuous cracks. One ran from the top of Gaster's right eye socket and over the top of his skull, and the other ran from the bottom of his left eye socket to the top of his mouth. They were tiny cracks, barely visible, but must have been very painful.

"Dad," said Sans, "What happened?"

"Hmm? Oh!" Gaster reached a hand up to run along the crack on his forehead and smiled, "It's nothing. A minor accident."

Papyrus looked up then, and noticed the cracks, "Don't they hurt?"

"Oh no, not anymore," he said, brushing off his sons' concern, "Now, where's the ball? I want to play!"

"Yay! Daddy wants to play!" yelled Papyrus, running off to find the ball. He came back a moment later with it and ran up to Sans, "Come on Sans! Let's play."

Sans paused, and then smiled for Papyrus' benefit, "Nah. You play with Dad for a bit. I'll take a break. Okay?"

"Okay! Come on Daddy!"

Sans turned and walked over to a tree nearby the court and sat down beneath it. He stared as his father as he dribbled the ball. It was odd to see their father take a sudden interest in basketball, but maybe this was still about wanting to watch his sons grow up. Sans was disturbed suddenly. Who knows how long their father had been gone this time, and with those cracks in his skull? Something was strange, but Sans found that he wasn't motivated enough to confront anyone about it. Instead, he simply watched the game.

Gaster and Papyrus were talking together animatedly as Papyrus bounced the ball up and down in his signature little-old-lady B-ball style. Sans couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were laughing and having a good time, and Sans didn't want to take that away from Papyrus. He knew his presence would bring down the mood.

Then the game began, and Sans sat up rail straight at what happened all in the course of a few hurried seconds of activity. Papyrus had begin to circle around, bouncing the ball and making mismatched sound effects, as usual, but Gaster's reaction was swift and violent. Using his height and his stronger frame, Gaster stepped in suddenly, pushing hard against Papyrus and snatching the ball away. Papyrus fell hard onto the pavement, crying out, but Gaster didn't seem to notice. He dribbled the ball closer to the hoop and, with a mighty leap, landed a beautiful dunk. It took Sans a minute to process what he had seen. It was only when he heard Papyrus begin to cry that he stood up and ran back to the court.

"What the hell, Dad!" Sans screamed, "Why'd you do that?"

"Did you see that?" Gaster said, waving his arms in victory, "Boom! Get dunked on!"

Papyrus's sobs rose in intensity, and Sans rushed over to see if he was hurt. He was holding his knee, and Sans could see that the bone was scuffed. It wasn't serious, but it probably stung. He hugged Papyrus, and turned his face towards their father.

"Dad, what's wrong with you?"

Gaster seemed to notice his sons sitting down on the pavement suddenly, and a sharp change came over his bearing. He wasn't bouncing around the court anymore, he was standing up straight and tall, as he usually did, and his face faded from his joyous smile into a face of concern.

"Oh. Oh, Papyrus, I'm so sorry."

He rushed over, but Sans hugged his brother closer to his chest.

"Just go," said Sans.

Gaster was speechless. He looked down at his hands. He seemed disoriented, but consumed in guilt all the same.

"I'm..." he began, "I'm sorry Papyrus. I'll be at home if you two need me."

"Go! Now!" screamed Sans, losing his patience, and Papyrus' sobs intensified.

Gaster turned, wringing his hands together and began to walk away. As he walked, Sans stared at his back, confused and upset about what had happened. As he watched, however, a strange, subtle change came over his father. His posture became worse, and his gait was strange, as if the tall skeleton's long legs were unfamiliar to him. Gaster looked back at Sans over his shoulder, and a chill went up Sans' spine. Gaster was smiling.

"W-why was Daddy so mean?"

"I... I don't know," said Sans, although he had an idea, "Come on, get up. Lets go home and get that knee looked at."

"O-okay."

"We can get nice cream on the way. We'll get one for Dad too. I'm sure he's just under a lot of stress."

"Yeah."

Papyrus wiped the tears out of his eyesockets and hugged himself close to Sans, and the two of them walked back towards home, not even bothering to pick up their basketball. Papyrus was too shaken, and Sans too consumed in his fears. That look on his father's face, could it have been from the human's SOUL?

–

It took a nice cream cone and an hour drawing superheroes before Papyrus was calmed down enough that Sans felt that he could leave him alone and go down into the lab to confront his father. When he entered the lab, he was struck by how different everything was. Not only was the time machine sitting there in the center, the source of all of this trouble, but looming large above, there was a strange machine, shaped somewhat like one of Gaster's blasters, but scaled up, and with curly horns on top. Ominous wires ran from it to a large, boxy machine on the workbench. Next to it, there were three tubes, each with a bright red human SOUL inside.

Gaster was standing over the SOULs, staring at them, smiling. The cracks in his forehead were wider, somehow, and the sight of them made Sans deeply uncomfortable. Once Sans had finished descending the stairs, Gaster turned, and stood up straight.

"Sans!" he said, "Good timing. I just returned from a trip. Don't worry, it wasn't long."

"Dad. What's going on?" said Sans, "You could have hurt Papyrus."

Gaster seemed non-plussed. He smiled vaguely, seemingly unaware of what they were talking about.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he said, "Is Papyrus hurt? What happened?"

"Dad, how long were you gone just now?"

"Is this about the basketball court? That was weeks ago. I told you I was sorry. Papyrus and I were just speaking and..."

"That wasn't us!" screamed Sans, "That happened an hour ago! Papyrus is still up in the living room, probably crying. How long were you gone for?"

"Oh. I forgot," said Gaster, laying the Memory Card on the table, "I'm sorry. It gets confusing. The timeline I was just in had many of the same events happen. A week displaced in time will do that."

"Just stop it!" said Sans, "You were gone for a whole week. You don't even feel bad anymore while Papyrus is still in pain."

"I wasn't..." began Gaster, beginning to get annoyed, "I wasn't just gone for a week. I've made several trips. I remember now. My... episode in the park gave me incentive to accelerate my plan. In the past – what was it? An hour? In the past hour I've gathered several SOULs. I'm almost ready."

"Dad," said Sans, "That look in the park. Those cracks in your face. Did you...? Did you already absorb one of those SOULS?"

"No. No of course not," said Gaster.

"Then... then why...?"

Gaster's face split into a jolly grin as he continued, "I've absorbed three so far."

Sans' eyes went wide. "Three...?"

"Don't worry, Sans. Nothing has happened. I must admit, the feeling is... strangely intoxicating, but I am completely under control. I am also quite powerful. I am holding myself back from metamorphosing into a different form – I don't want to upset you or Papyrus by changing my appearance too drastically – but, well, nothing to be done about my face, hmm? I suspect that's a side-effect of the Paradox Engine. Notice, one of the scars is in the same place your crack appeared after enduring Paradox feedback."

"Dad! Listen to me. You aren't acting like yourself. That stunt you pulled with Papyrus, that's something you would have never done. You aren't acting like yourself."

Gaster's smile flickered between friendly and menacing as he said, "Who am I acting like, exactly?"

Sans was beginning to sweat. His father was infused with the power of three human SOULs. This was a force more powerful than anything he had ever heard of before, but it was still his father. Even so, Sans could feel the terror begin to creep into his voice as he tried to work through his hypothesis.

"SOULs," he began, "Do they keep something of the person they used to inhabit?"

"I'm fine, Sans," answered Gaster, his smile beginning to fade, "It's nothing."

"So then, three SOULs, all from the same person. That must mean that there is a large portion of you in there that isn't you, Dad. That makes sense, right? If the SOULs were all from different people, then maybe there would be some kind of balance, but right now you're outnumbered. There's more of them in there than there is of you, isn't there?"

"I said!" cried Gaster, wildly, before he grabbed Sans by the collar and, with unnatural strength, lifted the shorter skeleton off the ground and brought their faces so close together that Sans could see the red point of light within Gaster's eyes, "It's nothing!"

Sans was speechless. He couldn't even struggle. He was frozen in terror at this thing inhabiting his father's body. Gaster's hand traveled up, moving strangely, hovering over Sans' face as he hung there by the collar of his shirt. He was sure the hand would close over his face, and do some harm to him, but it simply hovered there, as some inner struggle began to take place within Gaster, his face twitching between smile and frown. The red points of light behind Gaster's eyes, disappeared, and his normal eyes returned. He dropped Sans on the ground, and Sans collapsed on the floor, lying prone.

"I... I'm sorry, I... I don't know what came over me."

"Dad...?"

"Sans, please, go upstairs. I... I can't..."

Sans slowly stood, arms hanging limp at his sides. His father was in anguish, hugging his arms to himself, squeezing both elbows so tight that he shook uncontrollably. Gaster was staring at the floor, and slowly, he sank to his knees. Sans looked around the room. This could not stand. He had to do something.

Suddenly, Sans made a break for it. He ran to the work bench and snatched one of the tubes containing a SOUL off of the table. He raised it over his head, intending to smash it against the floor and destroy it. However, in the next instant, both of his hands were encircled by Gaster's, squeezing his wrists so hard he was sure that his carpals would break. He let go of the canister, and Gaster let go of one of his wrists to take it and place it gently on the table, before turning his ire onto Sans.

Sans' arm was wrenched hard, and a moment later, another hand was curled around his neckbones, squeezing. Once again they were face to face. The red light was back.

"You think you can stop me, little skeleton?" said Gaster in a voice that was not his own, "You think you can do anything against the likes of me?"

"Wh-who are you?"

"Nobody. Not anymore. Not after your Daddy murdered me," said the voice, "I can hear him right now, screaming in my ear. He's in my fingertips now. He won't let me kill you. Yet."

"What do you want?"

"Soon, I'll have seven, and then I'll be myself again," he said, before he let go of Sans' wrist and, with a deft toss, threw Sans across the room.

Sans skidded across the metal floor, coughing. The strength in his father's limbs was unreal. He could have crushed his spine with a flick of his wrists, but he didn't. It was true. Gaster was still in there.

Sans looked back at his father, and saw what he was doing. With his bare hands, Gaster was crushing the glass of the tubes, and, one by one, grasped the pulsing soul inside. Each time, he would take the soul, gently, and then squeeze down on it, absorbing it through his hands. The cracks in his face grew and grew, forming a rift in his skull, and his smile began to widen, melting into a long, black void. Once all three souls were taken into his body, Gaster's hands were longer than Sans had ever seen them, with strange holes in the palms. His black suit, formerly so natty and angular, had melted into an indistinct black mass.

Gaster began to shamble towards the time machine. Sans stared at the horror as it crept into the tube, and closed the door behind itself. Too late, Sans cried out.

"No! Stop!" he screamed, "Come back!"

But it was too late. In a flash of light, Gaster was gone. Sans was back on his feet, and pounded his fists against the clear plastic, but there was nothing to be done. He looked at the table where the SOULs had been, hoping against hope that his father had somehow missed one, but only saw the Memory Card sitting there. Gaster needed only one more SOUL before he became all powerful. He didn't need the Memory Card to return to this timeline anymore, and the Memory Card wouldn't be nearly enough to bring him back.

"I have to follow him..." he muttered to himself as he ran towards the console. He checked the time where Gaster had gone. It was easily twenty years ago, well before Sans had been born. Even so, he typed in the date again and prepped the machine.

He opened the hatch, intending to follow, to try to stop Gaster before he became godlike. The machine powered up, but, almost as soon as the blue glow began, it stopped. The Paradox Engine gave a pop, and an error message appeared on the console.

"No. No!" cried Sans as he reopened the hatch and ran back to the computer. The error glowed red.

No corporeal body found, it said. Sans wasn't born yet. There was no way for him to follow.

He screamed, frustrated. He had to get to that time. He had to stop his father from murdering that child one more time. He raced around the room, trying desperately to find a solution, before he fell against the table, pounding his fists against it.

It was then he felt something soft underneath his fists. He opened his eyes and blinked back the tears of frustration, and found that lying on the table was a red scarf, fifteen years older than it should have been. He touched it, worried all over again for his little brother in a world where that creature had taken control of his father. All at once the idea formed.

He wound the scarf around his neck, drawing strength from it. He realized what he had to do. He had all the time he needed to enact his plan. If his father could steal a soul from the human child, then it stood to reason that Sans could steal a soul from his father. He had to travel back in time, to when he knew Gaster was outside of the lab – perhaps to the day of the Quiche – to claim a human SOUL for himself. That was the one force he could use against his father, the DETERMINATION inside that soul.

He calibrated the machine anew, pocketed the Memory Card, and stepped into the machine. He was terrified of what might happen, but there was no other way. The blue glow began, and this time, the world exploded into white, and Sans was on his way.

–

It was strangely disorienting, feeling himself suddenly pop into existence. He was sitting on the couch. He was watching Papyrus sitting at the table in front of a Guess Who board, staring at it, trying to divine which monster his father had. Deja vu, more intense than he had ever felt before, washed over him, and he struggled to master his face. Gaster would return any moment now, and when he did, he had very little time to act.

"D-don't you mean Selfish?" said Papyrus almost as soon as Sans felt himself come into existence.

"Huh?"

"You mean Selfish, right? You said Shellfish."

"Oh," he said, not understanding what he was hearing. In the next moment his mind made the connection, "Oh! Yeah. Uh... I think you, uh, Sea what I mean there."

"Sans?"

"I should have been more Pacific."

"Sans no."

"I... uh... maybe I should have, uh..."

Sans realized, he had skipped a pun. He was so disoriented, and he didn't expect to pop in in the middle of a conversation, that he had jumped ahead in the conversation without meaning to.

"Should have... what?" asked Papyrus after a moment.

"Uh," was all Sans could think to say.

"Sans, you're starting to tread water," said Papyrus, "Are you okay?"

"Water! That's right! Water you gonna do about it?"

"What am I gonna do about what?"

"About... oh never mind."

"Sorry for the wait," said Gaster as he came back into the room, "Hope you boys have been behaving yourselves."

"Daddy! Sans is making ocean puns. Make him st...!"

"Dad! What about the Quiche!" cried Sans suddenly, cutting off Papyrus.

"The... Quiche?"

"Yes, the Quiche. How is the Quiche?"

"Quiche?" said Gaster, his smile fading into confusion, "What Quiche?"

Sans drove the conversation hard and fast, knowing the outcome already, all he had to do was say, "Very funny, Dad. Didn't you just take the Quiche out of the oven?"

Gaster's face shifted from confusion, to a sudden horror. He stood with a hurried 'excuse me' and rushed back out of the room. Papyrus, however, was not writhing about in sweet suffering from the force of his and his father's combined puns. His eyes were wide as he stared towards where Gaster had went.

"D-daddy forgot the Quiche?"

"Don't worry about it, Papyrus. Maybe you'll get spaghetti instead."

"O-okay."

With that, Sans stood quickly. He only had a few minutes before their father, with heavy heart, would come back and report the regrettable loss of the Quiche. He rushed away, towards the automatic door through which the laboratory lie, ignoring Papyrus' confused call after him, and rushed down the stairs. Once again, he was in the lab, although it was a much friendlier place back then. Still, there was the cylinder under the sheet on the work bench, surrounded by discarded blasters. Sans whipped the sheet off, revealing the SOUL, pulsing as always. He took the tube with the soul inside, and, with nothing else to do, he fished around in his pocket for the Memory Card.

"Sans!" cried Gaster from upstairs, "What are you doing down there?"

Sans flinched. This isn't how things were supposed to happen. He realized that because he hadn't gone to speak with Gaster in the kitchen, his father must have come back to the dinner table almost immediately. Papyrus would have ratted him out, and he would follow. There was no time.

Sans hugged the glass cylinder against his ribcage with one arm, and, with the other hand, prepared to press the button on the Memory Card. Almost as soon as he did, he saw his father finish descending the staircase and call out his name in confusion just as he heard the bark of a small annoying dog.

–

And in the next instant, he was back in his own timeline. He looked down to the glass tube in his hand and was relieved to see the SOUL within. As he exited the time machine, he considered the possibility of absorbing the SOUL himself to take in the essence of the owner and try to travel to its owner's time, but he wanted nothing even remotely like that creature vying for space within his head. He looked around for another option, and his gaze fell on the gigantic skull-shaped device which loomed over the workshop.

He approached it. It reminded him of one of Gaster's blasters – a device which took a subject's raw energy and transmuted it into pure destructive force. Gaster fused with the human SOULs had created it recently, so it must have had something to do with the SOUL. Perhaps it could turn the SOUL's power into a weapon. There was a slot where the container could be placed, and so he decided to roll the dice and experiment with the machine.

He placed the SOUL onto the small intake machine hooked into the huge skull by thick wires, and proceeded to flip a switch on the side. The computers nearby winked to life. The screens called the machine a 'DETERMINATION Extractor' and when Sans saw that, he jumped for joy. He didn't need the SOUL. He simply needed the DETERMINATION within it to gain more control over his personal chronology. Familiar with how his father built machines, he pulled a few levers and typed some information into the computers, before pulling one last switch. All at once, the machine sprung to life, and the human SOUL was surrounded in a strange orange glow. He thought for a moment that nothing was happening and that the machine was unfinished, but, bit by bit, the SOUL seemed to start sweating.

It was a viscous, orange substance, which collected on the outside of the glass container like water condensation, and dripped to the bottom of the jar where tiny slots collected it. Sans followed the tubes and wires to the extractor itself, which was alternating between gentle hums and harsh screeching as it worked, pumping the raw liquid through the deep black cavities within, until another set of wires lead Sans to another table behind it, where a glass beaker was beginning to fill up with a neon yellow substance. He let it work for some minutes, until he had several millilitres of liquid to work with.

Now, the next question. What he held in his hand was raw, filtered DETERMINATION, one of the most powerful substances in the world. His father had absorbed six human SOULs, and was on his way to collect one more in order to become some kind of horrible god of destruction or whatever. Sans didn't have time to try anything nuanced or clever. All he had was determination, DETERMINATION, and desperation.

Without hesitation, he did the first thing he could think of. He tipped the beaker to his mouth and, in a straight shot, he drank the whole thing, and soon after the world went insane.


	6. Chapter 6

How long was Sans lying on the floor?

The sensations flowing through his body were strange, and intoxicating. It felt as though his marrow was flowing, shifting between his individual bones, melting together to form the body of the one called Sans. He could hardly see, his eyes so assaulted by the miniscule patterns of microscopic specks of dirt and metal shavings on the floor. It was so colorful, and beautiful, that Sans could not look away.

He was face down, staring deep into the floor, his vision eventually sliding upwards until, gently, he could see a perfectly smooth expanse of white. The inside of his own skull. His awareness, itself already highly symbolic and infused with magic, began to leave his eyesockets and wander to the back of his skull, where it turned, and slid down, until it reached the tiny hole at the top of his spinal column. He could see within, traveling down the full length of his own spine, occasionally illuminated by flashes of light seeping in where the discs interlocked together, bone to bone, with tiny spaces in between. He looked up through one such space, and exited, finding himself then within a massive plaza bathed in light. A latticework of bone-white arches towered overhead, with warm, colorful light pouring in through them, as if he was in some sort of beautiful church. He felt footsteps upon his longitudinals, and reached up with imaginary hands to run along the smooth surface on the inside of his sternum. He laid down in that chamber, growing in size until the cage was pushing in on him. His head peeked past his clavicle, his legs pushed out towards and then past his pelvis, and soon he was large enough that he felt the ribs on the outside push against the ribs on the inside, until they became one.

He opened his eyes, now back in their eyesockets, and found that he was lying on his back. Somehow, he had taken off his shirt to let the fluorescent light above filter into his ribcage. He found himself breathing hard, sweating greatly.

He sat up, not intending to waste time hallucinating all day. He had the DETERMINATION inside of him. He had to stop his father.

He froze when he heard a wet clatter. He looked over at his hands, and found that the bones of his pinky had detached and falling to the ground. The bone was lying on the ground, gently liquefying. Sans, frantically reached down with his other hand to pick the bone back up, and the jellied bone, with a mind of its own, seeped across the floor and made contact with Sans' hand. Sans' fingers seemed to absorb the bone, and, a moment later, Sans' pinkie was back where it should have been, as if nothing had happened. His eyes were wide and his breathing was harsh, and he could feel DETERMINATION crawling on his back.

"Gotta get up..." he said, going to a knee, and then standing fully, "Have to... stop... Dad..."

All at once, an odd sensation began to wash over him. A horrible incomplete feeling, as if he was something half-formed and ugly. He shook his head, trying to dispel the feeling, but it simply intensified as he took a step forward, and then another step. Where was he going?

He forced himself back into awareness, and realized his footsteps were leading him towards the staircase up to the living room. The sight led his mind to wander to Papyrus, and he smiled. The love he felt for his brother felt so good, spreading warmth all over his body as he began to shamble, rather than walk. His legs didn't seem to be working right.

He wanted to see Papyrus. He wanted to touch Papyrus. He wanted to hug Papyrus. He wanted to become one with Papyrus. He wanted to consume Papyrus. He wanted to take Papyrus into himself, keep him safe, become one, consume, hug, love, consume, safe, take, consume, safe, hug, consume, love.

He was three steps up when he realized he had lost himself again. His rational mind was eroding away, but he realized all of a sudden what his irrational, DETERMINATION-addled mind was trying to do. This body craved more matter and more magic to hold itself together. He looked down at his body. He was barely a skeleton anymore. He was vaguely the same shape, but he was liquefying, dripping white, calcified sludge from his arms and ribs, and rolling across the floor on blobs which did not even resemble leg bones anymore. The full horror of what was going on hit him fully in that instant, and he screamed, falling backwards off of the stairs to get away from the living room. His one rational desire was to keep Papyrus safe.

He fell down the stairs, coming down hard on the metal floor of the lab, but he felt no pain. He splashed as he landed, and was scattered across the lab for a moment, before his individual pieces began to flow back into him, forming Sans once again from the memory of what Sans once was.

"Sans? What's going on?" said a voice from up above, "Did you scream?"

Every molecule in Sans' body hummed to begin climbing the stairs again. It was everything he could do to stop himself. He crawled away from the stairs, using what arms he had to drag himself away from the staircase.

"Sans? I'm coming down."

"No!" screamed Sans, his voice strange and distorted, "Don't come down here!"

The air was quiet, before Papyrus called own, "Sans, what's wrong?"

"N-nothing's wrong, kiddo," he said. He realized that he wasn't talking out of his mouth. His body was vibrating lightly, creating talk out of nothing. "Hey. Hey. You wanna play a game?"

Papyrus' voice sounded terrified as he said, "Okay."

"Lets play... lets play hide and seek, okay? You run and hide somewhere, somewhere you know I won't find you. I'll count to a... a thousand, and when I get to a thousand, I'll come looking for you, okay?"

"I don't like this, Sans. What happened?"

"I'm going to get you if you don't hide, Papyrus," said Sans, before he began to count, slowly.

He didn't hear Papyrus leave until he reached ten, and could hear the frightened whimper on the other side of the door for several seconds after that. By the time Sans reached thirty, Papyrus was gone, safe, and Sans' body screamed at him for more matter to stabilize itself with.

He stopped counting, never intending to reach a thousand, but he wasn't the only one in there. He could feel the DETERMINATION take up the count without him, counting hard and fast, and before he knew it, it had reached a hundred. Sans did not want to know what would happen if it actually reached one thousand.

He didn't have eyes, but he could still see, and so he swept his awareness across the room for something he could use. He saw the DETERMINATION extractor, looking as if it was laughing at him, and it gave him an idea.

He looked towards the workbench, where the human SOUL was still sitting on the dock of the DT machine. He then shifted his gaze further down the workbench, where he could see the white, grinning skulls of Gaster's blasters. He knew what to do, and he continued to crawl along the ground, oozing towards the workbench, to try to save himself before he finished counting. He had reached three-hundred already.

He could not stand, but he didn't care. He simply touched the bottom of the table leg, and began to flow up. Three-hundred-fifty. He reached the tabletop, and saw four blasters on the table, lined up neatly. Four-hundred. He inched his way across the table, most of his body still clinging to the floor and the table legs, and stretched a tendril towards the grinning skull. Four-hundred-fifty. Was he going slow, or was his DETERMINATION counting faster? Five-hundred-fifty. He didn't wait to find out.

He flowed himself over the blaster. It took a long time – Six-hundred-fifty – for him to engulf the first blaster, but as soon as he made contact with the element inside, and felt a switch flip, his body began to tremble.

The blaster began to siphon off the magic of Sans' body, and with it, the excess of DETERMINATION causing him to become unstable. He could feel himself speeding up – including the count. Eight-hundred. He had to work fast. He flowed over another blaster, and then another – Nine-hundred – And finally he flowed into the last one and, all at once, turned all of them on.

His body began to buzz, as if he had been shocked with electricity, and, strangely, he felt himself firming. The weight of his mass flowing across the table caused the table to flip over, and everything spilled on the floor. He splashed across the floor again, losing his mass completely. However, he was aware that the blasters were gone. He had absorbed them fully, taken their mass into himself, and they were still on.

They did their job over the course of the next moment, or perhaps it took hours. He flowed back into his own body, his mind finally fully clear for the first time in what felt like an eternity. He wanted to be himself again. He wanted to be Sans again. He had a vision in his mind of a Skeleton, short, kind of pudgy, who loved dumb jokes, and bonded with his father and tormented his little brother with puns. He loved the taste of ketchup, enjoyed hot dogs, did not care much for spaghetti, and regarded quiche as too heavy a responsibility to bear. A femur formed, and then a tibia, and then a scapula. Pelvis. Phalanges. Metatarsals. Ribs. He felt his bones rolling across the floor, connecting joint-to-joint, reassembling themselves into Sans. Finally, he felt his skull on the floor and opened his eyes. His skull was lying on the ground sideways, staring at his own body. He watched as his headless body got up onto its knees, and then climbed to its feet. He felt fingers close around the sides of his head, and in a moment he was lifted up, turned around, and the head bone connected to the neck bone. Sans was complete.

He felt alone. He looked around and realized that his clothes were lying here and there, discarded during the strange episode. He could still feel the DETERMINATION within him, driving him forward. He could even still feel the urge to find another monster and merge with them, but with the blasters broken down into their component parts inside of him, weakening the effects of the DETERMINATION, he was in control of himself and his own destiny.

Shaken by the episode, he gathered up his shorts and tee-shirt and hurriedly put them back on. He then looked around for anything else he had forgotten. He noticed shards of glass on the floor, and looked around. He saw that the human SOUL was lying on the floor, pulsing slightly, casting its red glow over everything. Exposed to the open air, it was already beginning to disintegrate, but Sans didn't want to take any chances. He wanted it destroyed.

By instinct, he waved his arms indistinctly towards the heart-shaped SOUL. In the next instant, a long grinning skull emerged from within Sans' body and, yawning its mouth open wide, fired a beam of pure, concentrated Sans into the human's SOUL. It only took a little power, and the soul cracked in two, before shattering completely all over the floor.

Sans looked down at his hand, and then up to the ethereal blaster he had conjured out of thin air. That was new. Without any reason to exist, the blaster faded away, sinking back into Sans' body. It felt as natural as telling a joke.

With his exploration of his new form finished, he finally decided he was ready. He went back towards the time machine, hoping that he wasn't too late, opened the hatch and climbed inside. He pressed the button to once again send him following after Gaster. At first the error message came up again, but then Sans gave a flex of his DETERMINATION. He was filled with a sudden power – the power to reset and rewrite everything – and that power coupled with the time machine's processes overrode the machine's failsafes. It turned on, and began to glow blue, and once again, Sans was hurtling through time and space.

–

Sans appeared in a strange, black corridor. It was dark in there, with only a few lances of gray light from the ceiling illuminating the scene. To his right, there was a huge door, the perfect size for a massive monster to go through. He wondered if this was the castle, and if that door was meant for King Dreemur.

A strange light below hims made him look down, and he could see that there was a funny point of yellow light on the floor. The sight of it seemed to react to the DETERMINATION in his body, and he found himself reaching for it. However, he stopped short. He felt, all of a sudden, that this point of light was not for him. He turned away from it, and walked through the door.

Yellow dominated Sans' vision. Two gigantic thrones were set in the middle of the room, and the ground was covered in a carpet of beautiful golden flowers. Rays of light shone down from tiny holes in the ceiling where sunlight, real sunlight, filtered in from the surface, bathing these flowers in their life-giving rays. The entire scene gave Sans pause. He had never seen Asgore Dreemur's throne room.

However, his wonder was cut short by a scream. A small child, a boss monster like Asgore, ran in from a door in the back, sobbing and gibbering. He tripped over his own feet and fell onto a patch of flowers. Sans approached carefully. This must have been Asriel, the king's child.

"Hey, are you okay?" said Sans.

Asriel's head jerked up. Tears were streaming down his face, matting the white fur down. He leaped up and ran towards Sans, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him towards the back room.

"Help! You gotta help me! The royal scientist went crazy!"

Sans needed no other words. He told Asriel to stay there, and ran into the back room. Most of the room was pitch black, except for a single ray of bright light illuminating a patch of grass in the middle of the room. It was there where Gaster stood.

The first thing that Sans noticed was that his father had so many hands. One was clamped around the neck of a young child in a green striped shirt, another was grabbing hold of the child's arm, which was holding a knife in futile self-defense. Other hands were orbiting around, touching the child, testing him for the most opportune place to strike.

"Dad!" cried Sans, "Stop! Stop this."

"Sans... I was waiting for you," said Gaster, as well as not-Gaster. Sans heard two voices when his father spoke, "It took you so long to get to me, but the fool said you would find a way here."

"Put the kid down!"

"Now, Sans. You know I won't," said the creature in the guise of his father, "Besides, I don't even need to kill the child, do I?"

The child was frightened, but was also listening. They had heard something familiar in the voice of this monster, something that seemed to calm them.

"Stop! Don't!" cried Sans.

Gaster spoke only to the child, however, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"It's you," it said, "Your plan doesn't work. Join me. We will do it right. With this body, we will kill them all."

Slowly, the child began to smile, despite the hand clamped around their neck. Their eyes began to glow the same pulsing red of the human SOUL, and two of Gaster's hands formed a cradle in front of the child. Their arm went limp, and they dropped the knife, and soon after, of their own free will, the human's SOUL flowed out of the child and into the waiting hands of Gaster.

"No! Stop!" screamed Sans, raising both arms. Two blasters appeared and in the next second, fired two lasers towards the SOUL before Gaster could absorb it.

However, two more hands appeared, and deflected the beams from the blasters. The lasers dug deep furrows into the ground where they hit, but the human SOUL was unharmed, and soon it disappeared into the darkness of Gaster's body. Gaster began to laugh, and his boy pulsated. The cracks on his face opened fully, revealing a red glow underneath, and forcing one eye to close forever, never to open again. The other eye opened wide, shining in the dusky light of the room. The human's body was discarded with an off-hand toss, as Gaster rounded upon Sans, jet black smile curling up the side of Gaster's skull.

"Sleep now, Sans," he said, "Sleep forever."

Sans heard the snap of a a finger, although he did not see which hand did it, and immediately, the world ceased to exist.


	7. Chapter 7

Sans awoke from the nightmare in a cold sweat. He sat bolt upright, his body chilly even in the heat of Hotland, and he looked around his room wildly. Everything was quiet, and dark. He was alone. He calmed down. Just a dream. None of it was real.

He felt as if he had been asleep for days, and so he whipped off the blankets and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He stood up, stretching out his bones. He wondered what was for breakfast. He wondered idly what pancakes and ketchup would taste like.

He picked a white shirt up off the ground and slipped it on, and then pulled on a pair of basketball shorts over his boxers. He then slipped his feet into a pair of blue slippers, and left his room. He felt like maybe he was up early. He never got up so promptly after waking.

Once he was out in the hall, he called out, "Dad! What's for breakfast? I'm starving."

There was no answer from down below. Everything was still and silent, with only the hum of the escalators lending the scene any noise at all. He shrugged his shoulders and stepped onto one, letting it carry him down into the living room.

"Dad, did you hear me?"

He could smell something burning. Odd. His father was a good cook, and rarely burned anything. However, when Sans poked his head into the kitchen door and looked in, he saw no one. The oven wasn't on, and his father was not there.

He furrowed his brow, and gave another sniff to the air. It wasn't a burning smell like food. He realized it was more like the hot tang of melted solder, or burning tires, and that it was coming from downstairs in the lab.

"Papyrus!" he called out, "Where's Dad?"

No answer. He was beginning to get scared. Early in the morning was Papyrus' time. Every morning he got up even before Gaster to do whatever it is crazy people do early in the morning when they're too young to like the taste of coffee. Sans ran up the up-escalator, and rushed into Papyrus' room. There was no one there.

"Papyrus?" he said, quietly, "Papyrus, where are you?"

He looked around, remembering vaguely that he had sent the kid on a game of hide and seek and then abandoned the game for some reason... or was that a dream?

"Ready or not, here I come," Sans said, trying to keep his spirits up. However, he felt his fear well up within his chest as he began to look around Papyrus' room, at first slowly and deliberately, and then with frantic energy, crying out his brother's name as he wandered.

He checked behind furniture. He checked inside the closet, he checked under the covers. Finally, the last place he hadn't looked was underneath Papyrus' racecar-shaped bed. It was awkward to see between the wheels, but there was certainly just enough room for his brother to squeeze under and hide. He fell to his knees and looked.

"Papyrus?" he whispered under the bed. He couldn't see anything. Shivering, Sans reached a hand underneath the bed and began to grope around for some clue about what was going on. Papyrus was a clean kid, and he didn't throw any toys or anything under his bed. Sans couldn't feel much of anything, until his fingers touched something soft, like a piece of cloth. He grabbed hold of it, and pulled it out, dragging it into the light.

It was a red scarf, covered in dust. Sans' hand, from all the patting around underneath the bed, was coated in a thick layer of gray dust as well. He stared at the scarf, and a look of horror played across his face. His grip on the scarf weakened and he let it drop to the floor, and stared at his hands, filthy with the ashes beneath Papyrus' bed. His eyes went wide, and tears welled up in them.

Shaking his hand to get the lingering remains of his brother off of them, he screamed and ran out of the room. He was screaming for his father, for anyone, to come help him. He ran to the escalator and nearly fell down it, but he caught himself on the hand rail. He was carried, on his knees, down to the living room, clenching his dirty fist and shaking it. He realized that he was sobbing. He didn't understand what was going on. He had to find his father.

He got up once he was at the bottom of the escalator, and ran for the lab entrance. He ran down the stairs and into the laboratory proper, and once he got to the bottom, he was taken aback by the state of the room.

His father's workbench was overturned, and shards of glass littered the floor. Not only that, but the machine in the middle, that tall tube that gave Sans a headache to look at, was popping and smoking, with sparks flying off of it. He stared at it, his eyes traveling to the blue, winking eye of the Paradox Engine above, and came to the sudden realization.

It wasn't a nightmare. It was all real. It was happening even as he stood there, looking numbly at the scene he had caused. It wasn't just his brother that had been reduced to dust where he stood. By the way the Paradox engine was sparking, and by the headache that was starting, the engine could not contain the amount of sheer paradoxes happening at every moment due to Gaster's influence. He could almost see it, everyone all at once loaded down with the body-destroying horror of existing in an infinite number of places at once without a safety net. They must have been in intense pain for a half second, before they were all reduced to ashes.

But why was he spared?

He looked away from the time machine, the headache getting to be too much. He touched his forehead with a finger and felt something wet there, where his skull had cracked weeks and weeks ago. He pulled his hand away and was alarmed to find his fingertips coated in something bright red, as red as the human's SOUL.

DETERMINATION. That was the answer. Whatever the DETERMINATION had done to his body had made him somehow immune to the ill effects of overloading the timeline with constant paradoxes. His will to go on overrode the laws of the universe. He had died when Gaster killed him, but he LOADed his state back to his own timeline, before he left. No other monster had that power.

He suddenly saw it, that yellow spark again, nearby the time machine. His mind raced with thoughts of how to defeat his father once and for all, and he had a sudden thought.

Sans realizing that he could use the Paradox Engine against his father filled him with DETERMINATION.

He turned back to the time machine, before rushing past it and pulling the power cord out of it. It hummed for a moment, before it turned itself off, and the sparks subsided. He then dragged a stepstool over to the machine, screwdriver in hand, and climbed up to the top of the time machine. He didn't have time to waste. The Paradox Engine, fueled by some inner machinery which kept the blue light on, was held on by four screws and a handful of wires. He yanked the wires out and held the engine in his hands, and contact with it seemed to make him feel better, as if it was correcting his personal timeline. The wound on his forehead spontaneously closed itself up. He was safe, and it gave him an idea.

If this machine corrected paradoxes for anything it touched, what would it do if it came into contact with a being which was made up of seven copies of the same SOUL? Surely that is the largest paradox of all. The engine was even smaller than he had supposed before. Still, he knew that if he walked up to Gaster with it in hand, his father would realize what was happening and take steps to stop him. He had to put Gaster off guard. He had to hide it.

He ran over to the work bench and righted it, and then went to work. He laid the Paradox Engine on the table, and considered his options. Carrying it in a bag or in a pocket was out. It would only give Gaster a clear target. He considered his ribcage, but he would have had to rearrange his ribs to form a solid bottom, and he had no time. Finally, he realized the perfect place for it, where Gaster would never expect. His DETERMINATION roiled as he reached up, slowly, placing his hands on either side of his head. He closed his eyes, sure this was going to hurt, and, with a sharp yank, pulled off his head.

The sensation was indescribable. Unlike before, he wasn't made numb by the hallucinatory nature of the DETERMINATION injection. The top of his vertebrae was alight in phantom pain almost immediately, and his head was screaming in a sharp sting where the skull should have met the spine. Even so, he worked through the pain. He turned his own head upside down, making sure to rotate his face so he could see the Paradox Engine, and then got to work. The hole at the base of the skull, where the spine met his empty brain pan, was just big enough. Carefully, he dropped the Paradox engine inside.

Now came the hard part. He gathered a roll of duct tape, and, without looking, he had to reach his fingers inside of his eyesocket and grope around until he found the device. He couldn't hold himself back from flinching every moment he felt his fingers touch the sides of his eyesocket, or the inside of his skull, but eventually, he found the device, and placed it where it needed to go. He carried his skull across the room to another workbench, where a clamp was set on the side of the table, and gently placed his head into it, before tightening it just enough so that his head could not move while he worked. The pressure on either side of his head scared him, as any more pressure would crush his head and kill him instantly, but he was too far along with this crazy scheme to run it back now.

With his hands free, he tore off a strip of duct tape, and then reached back inside of his eyesocket. He taped the engine to the side of his skull, and then, hurriedly, pull his fingers out and loosened the clamp. He was eager to put his head back on. He had never been so uncomfortable in his life, and as soon as the top of his spine met the base of his skull, a feeling a grand, healing relief flowed across his entire body. It felt good to be whole again.

Still, he couldn't enjoy it for long. He took a moment to inspect himself in the polished steel tabletop, and found that the blue glow of the Paradox Engine resembled his own eye, and if he concentrated, his own true eye's darkness would obscure the blue glow from view. The perfect hiding place.

He raced back up the stairs, into the living room, and out the door to the laboratory. He had work to do.

–

Sans was not ready for the state of the capitol when the elevator doors opened.

The air was dark with smoke, and alive with the sound of alarms. Despite the smell and noise, however, the whole city was deathly still. Nothing was moving, no one was on the street, and the whole places seemed abandoned. It seemed to be fairly early in the morning when Gaster's influence began to spread throughout the underground, and so he saw few little piles of gray ash lining the gutter, but the thought reminded him of finding what was left of his brother underneath his bed. He wondered how many other beds were coated in dust.

He forced the thoughts out of his head and kept walking. He knew where Gaster was, he could feel him. The king's throne room. That is where the paradoxes were originating, and that is where his DETERMINATION cried out for him to go.

He marched up the street, hands in pockets, and tried not to take in the view of the ghost town that the Capitol had become. In apartments high up in the buildings, fires had sprung to life where ovens or fire magic had been left unattended. That was where the klaxons were from, as buildings with automatic fire alarms called for help that would never come.

Sans paused as he walked past the little park he had taken Papyrus not long ago. It already seemed like it had been weeks ago, or perhaps it was just yesterday. He paused, staring though the chain link fence at the basketball hoop, and thought back to his brother.

Suddenly, as he stared, he remembered the events of that day, about how his father had knocked Papyrus over. He then remembered the event again, differently; Papyrus had stayed up, and they continued the game. He remembered it again, this time Sans had been knocked over. Again, Gaster had fallen, and Sans and Papyrus helped him up. Again, Sans knocked Papyrus over and Gaster became angry with him. It was all the same event, but the events were so different, so contradictory, that Sans began to become confused. He had forgotten which one was true. What was he looking at? Why were his memories going so haywire?

Another headache ripped through his skull and he looked away from the court. He realized in an instant what had happened. What he was seeing weren't memories. They were timelines – the same event happening simultaneously over the course of an infinite number of variations and possibilities. His eye glowed blue, and he could feel the Paradox Engine in his head, sorting out the sudden time-distortion swimming through his mind. Soon, he remembered the truth; his own personal timeline. All of the rest faded from existence and disappeared, collapsing into nothingness with nothing to tether themselves to.

But why? What was causing it?

Gaster. Somehow or other, Gaster, using the power of the human SOULS, was collapsing the multiverse down to a single point. That is why he was remembering contradictory things; in that moment, everything in every possible universe was occurring all at once forever, tearing the fabric of time and space. It sorted itself out eventually, but not without disastrous consequences for anyone without the Paradox Engine.

That must have been what killed everyone, Sans thought, They saw something familiar, and an infinite amount of possible memories tried to flow into their brains. It burned out the minds, and then their bodies, and they died instantly.

He turned back towards the castle and continued to walk. He'd had enough of this. Enough of losing everything. No matter what, he was going to defeat Gaster, or whoever he was now, and he would force him to bring everyone back.

–

The castle's defenses were down. The front gate, usually protected by two royal guards, was guarded only by piles of dust with empty black armor collapsed around them. Sans had free reign of the place, and walked though easily. He was happy when he came to an area that was unfamiliar to him. Several times during his walk through the capitol, he came across places he remembered – the nice cream stand, the supermarket, the convenience store – and every time, just like with the park, he would be bombarded with memories that weren't his, which the Paradox Engine had to sort out. Without strong personal memories attached to a place, he hoped that he was safe from bombardment, at least for a little while.

Within the castle, everything was a strange, melancholy gray. With the alarms and fire of the Capitol behind him, everything was silence. He was glad he was still wearing his house slippers, or else the tapping of shoes on the stone floor would have driven him mad.

Eventually, after passing through what seemed like endless gray hallways, punctuated by what looked to be the foyer of a cozy house, Sans found himself in a long, brightly lit hallway lined on both sides with pillars and stained glass. From the left, light poured in through the glass, casting everything in a gentle, yellow glow. It was beautiful, but the sight filled him with an unexplained sense of dread. This hallway, which he had never seen before, meant something to him. Something important. It felt as if it was on the tip of his tongue – if he had a tongue – but the longer he stayed, the more uncomfortable he became.

He continued to walk, trying to avert his eyes from the room's dreadful beauty, and soon he came out the other side.

This hallway was familiar! He had been here once before, far in the past. It was another gray hallway, like many of the others, but he knew that the massive door at the center of the hall lead into the throne room. The difference now was that he saw no bright point of light next to the doorway. His own DETERMINATION was not strong enough to see them anymore.

With nothing else, he walked through the door, head held high, hands in his pockets. It was time to end this.

The room seemed the same as it was when he had visited in the past, with one exception; in and among the flowers, there was now only a single throne, and, in the back of the room, the other one was stuffed into the corner and covered by a sheet. Asgore's kingly raiments were scattered across the field of flowers and covered in a fine powder. It was too late for him. Even then, someone was sitting in his chair.

Sans stared at his father, fury upon his face. Gaster was slouching casually in the royal throne, his long legs crossed at the knee, his cheek leaning against a hand. Sans was struck by how normal his father looked, except, of course, for the two cracks which marred his face permanently. The black void of a smile widened as he noticed Sans.

"I was waiting for you," said Gaster, strange distortion making his voice sound almost childish, "You overslept and missed it when I killed everyone."

"Enough of this, 'Dad,'" said Sans, "Just stop. I know you aren't you. You're someone else. Something else. You're just a creature wearing my dad's bones like a suit. If you want to come out and kill me, then get it over with, but don't you dare pretend to be my Dad any more."

Gaster laughed, a funny little giggle, and his open eye began to glow an intense red.

"I guess that's true. There's no reason for me to pretend anymore," the creature said, "but you are wrong about something, Sans."

"I don't care," cried Sans, beginning to walk forward slowly and carefully, "I'm here to end this."

"Your Daddy is still in here with me, Sans," it said, leaning forward and twining its fingers together, "Would you like to speak to him?"

"Enough lies!"

However, Gaster simply tilted his head and waved a hand in front of his face. As soon as the hand passed by, the cracks disappeared, and the calm face of Dr. W. D. Gaster appeared. He sat up straight, placed both feet on the floor, and folded his hands neatly in his lap.

"Sans," he said, in a voice clear and full of love.

Sans didn't want to stop walking, but hearing his father's voice – or at least a voice that sounded so much like his father that he couldn't tell the difference – made him pause.

"So," the voice continued, "Here we are."

"Even if it is you," said Sans, "I can't trust you. You're... you're compromised by that thing."

"Compromised? Why Sans, I must disagree."

Sans furrowed his brow, before taking another step forward. Only a few more steps and he would be within spitting distance of his father. All he had to do was touch him, and it would all be over.

"I must apologize to you, Sans. I was so... obsessed with my research. I could see nothing but what was before me. I could do nothing but work towards my goal of breaking the barrier. I neglected you and Papyrus, and for that I was truly sorry."

"Enough, Dad," said Sans.

"But these SOULs, Sans, I have finally done it. What happened before was... growing pains. Now the SOULs and I are one."

"They aren't you! They can never be you!"

"But we share the same desire, Sans," said Gaster, a little bashful smile playing across his lips, "I am a scientist. I am the royal scientist. It is my job – no – it is my duty, my moral obligation to explore this world, find out how it ticks, and, once I find out that something can be done, to do it, without fear of the consequences."

"Even if it destroys you?" cried Sans, suddenly, "Even if it destroys everyone? Just because you can do something, does it really mean that you have to?"

"Absolutely! That is what I was placed on this earth to do. That is why I am here, in the underground. My morality is pure. I chose this. I regretted it once, but no more. Now I have power. Now I have become something akin to a God. I can know this universe intimately, from inside and out, and I can finally fulfill my duty to the King. I can destroy the barrier."

"The king is dead! Everyone is dead! Don't you understand, Dad? You killed them! You killed Papyrus!"

Gaster laughed and shook his head, before he stood, slowly, standing at his full height, towering over Sans.

"Papyrus isn't dead, Sans. He is merely... temporarily absent. I have plans for him, just as I have plans for you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about what I'm going to do with all of this power. It has taken some time – mostly because someone has been injecting himself with DETERMINATION behind my back – but once the timeline is completely collapsed, and there is only a single possible outcome for the Underground, I will break the barrier. After that, I will... reconstruct all of the monsters of the underground. Using every possibility from every timeline, I will pick and choose the best of all possibilities. Every monster will be perfect, and they will rally around me, and form an unstoppable army. Then we shall march upon the human world, and destroy them all for slighting us."

"It was never about destroying humanity!" screamed Sans, "It was about freedom! We wanted to see the surface. Nobody had to die."

"I..." said Gaster. Sans was astonished to see a look of hesitation pass through his father's expression, before the confidence returned. "I admit that these SOULs call out for human blood. Perhaps that is their influence. Even so, that is trivial. I have no opinion whatsoever on humankind. The SOULs can go wild on the whole wretched race as far as I care, as long as monsters can live out their lives."

"Under your control!"

Gaster paused, placed a finger upon his chin and considered that. He smiled, a red glow coming into his eyes.

"Yes, that does sound nice."

Sans gave a laugh, smiling, "I knew it. It isn't you in there after all."

"Just because you cannot comprehend or accept your father's baser desires, little skeleton, does not mean they are not there."

"I know that," said Sans, his smile widening as he stepped forward. One more step and he would be in range. Just keep talking. "My Dad is a mad scientist. He always was, he always will be. He gave no thought to the morality of what he did, outside of how it affected the people closest to him. But he always thought about monster-kind, and how his actions would help them. That's how I know you are full of it, whoever you are."

With that, Sans took one more step forward. He was only a couple of feet away from Gaster. One lunge and it would be all over. Both of them were smiling into each other's faces, their expressions caught somewhere between love, admiration, and loathing.

"Then, I suppose, that's that then," said Gaster, "Nothing more need be said."

"Nope," answered Sans, "Nothing."

Sans took his moment. He lunged forward, reaching out a hand, intending to grab hold of any part of Gaster's body he could reach. Gaster's face melted back into its distorted form and his mouth opened wide in a crazed, silent scream. Sans was an inch away from grasping hold of Gaster's expensive, tailored suit, and, when he closed his fist around the cloth, he cried out in triumph.

However, Gaster seemed to disappear into black smoke. Sans, still lunging, fell against the red velvet cushion of Asgore's massive throne, and found himself on his knees. He pounded a fist on the throne in frustration and looked around desperately to try to find his father. He saw no one.

"You IDIOT!" screamed a presence in the room, one that could not be seen, only felt within the marrow of Sans' bones, "Did you really think it would be that simple?"

Sans sighed, standing up. "Y'know, for a second there, yeah. I did."

All at once, the room began to fade away. The yellow flowers and golden light gave way to an inky blackness without end. The very ground under Sans' feet disappeared, and he felt himself falling, except he wasn't. He felt a strange floating sensation. He was surrounded by nothing. Nothing after nothing pushed in on him on all sides.

He realized all at once that everything was gone. He was the only thing left. Only the DETERMINATION running through his bones protected him from being swallowed up by Gaster's darkness. He waited, floating there in the dark, looking around for any sign of the God of this realm.

Soon, a point of white appeared far off, or perhaps it was right next to his face. The white grew, and grew, until he could make out the features of his father's mangled face. As the white bone mask came closer and closer, Sans could feel all of the nothing surrounding him, churning and writhing. He felt their presence, passing so close to him as to touch him, without making contact.

Hi, I said, it's nice to finally meet you.

Sans looked around wildly. He looked ridiculous, like a fish on a beach, flopping around, drowning on the air. It was hilarious, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"You're... where are you?"

Everywhere.

"You're...You're in the narration?" cried Sans, terror on his face. Terror in his body. Terror everywhere.

Of course I am.

"This... this shouldn't be possible."

It isn't. I can still do it. I can do anything.

Pathetically, Sans tried the only thing he could think of. He aimed at my face, or at least what was left of the face of that old fool, and waved his arms like a silly ape. Two huge, long skulls appeared and fired out two big laser beams at the face I had presented to him. I remembered them through the old fool. Blasters, power amplifiers, weapons, fused to Sans' form via the injection of DETERMINATION. Cute.

My face exploded out into a circle of white, surrounding the laser before it could touch me, and letting it pass right by me, harmlessly. I couldn't help but laugh. He seemed so pathetic, just floating there, struggling.

Where are you aiming? I asked him, barely containing my laughter.

"Shut up!" Sans said, before he began to fire aimlessly into the darkness. Wherever he aimed, I wasn't there. It was useless.

Don't you feel hopeless, little Skeleton?

"I said shut up!"

I know what you want. I can see it inside of you. That little blue light. You believe that will help you. Paradox Engine; a device that balances timelines and resolves paradoxes. There is nothing more paradoxical than my existence. You think touching me with that will defeat me. But how can you touch what isn't there? How can you touch what can choose whether or not to exist from moment to moment.

Was Sans crying? What a baby. I thought he was stronger than that. Maybe he's got some dust in his eyes from that dead brother of his.

Don't talk about Papyrus like that.

Sans suddenly felt weight and gravity again. He breathed in, surprised, and looked around.

"Dad?"

No! Nobody here but me! I know I can't touch you, but these can!

Knives. That is what was needed. I thought back to my life with Asriel, I thought back to cooking, chopping up the leaves for buttercup pie for father. The form of the knife I used appeared in the void, dripping with the juices of the deadly flower. Sans' eyes went wide as he saw it. There was nothing he could do. All he had was a few more moments before the knife tore through his weak form, rending his SOUL apart. I hovered it there for a second, letting him have the first move. When he simply froze in fear, I struck.

"Please!" he screamed, "Help!"

I laughed. No one was coming. No one could help. I won.

Suddenly, the knife stopped, clanking against some kind of invisible wall. It clattered away, and the SOULs screeched in frustration.

"Wh-who?" said Sans, and I answered.

It's me.

"Dad?"

NO! This is my power! I am the one to wield it. I outnumber you!

You will not kill my son.

Where the knife was deflected, a skeletal hand suddenly appeared. The long, boney fingers curled and uncurled themselves. Another hand appeared, and then another, until Sans was surrounded on all sides by my presence.

"What do I do?" muttered Sans. He was frightened. I wanted to reach out with one of my hands, to touch him and console him, but the SOULs pulled me back. Sans' touch was death to them.

YOU DIE. Nothing you can do will help you. You are already dead! I can kill you any time.

Knives, knives everywhere. A hail storm of knives came falling down from above. Wide, spinning butcher knives. Long, sharp steak knives. Bread knives with wicked serrated blades. Short, stubby fruit knives. Even butter knives with dull edges. Every knife in Mom's drawer was flying through the air. That fool couldn't hope to catch them all!

Beware the man who speaks in hands, child.

My hands formed a solid wall, interlocking their fingers together, and making a barrier of bones through which none of those childish implements could pass. It was all clear. No matter how many of them there were, they were all children – impetuous, cruel, easily frustrated, and most of all, young and inexperienced. That is how you must defeat them, Sans.

"But... but how?" he asked me, "I've tried everything I have. He's too powerful for you. He'll break through eventually. You'll be destroyed!"

Do not worry about me, Sans. Simply worry about yourself. Do something surprising. Do something I don't know you can do. Something they won't expect.

I could feel Sans' mind racing. He thought, sweating profusely. I did not want to tell him, but my hands were aching from the chipping away of a million knives striking against my bones, carving me down to the marrow. He had to hurry.

"I am hurrying! Jeeze, give me a minute!"

Oops. Sorry. I didn't realize you could still hear me.

It's useless! Neither of you can stop me. I am the God of this world. I am all powerful. Don't you understand, you old fool? You murdered me. You murdered me seven times. You don't deserve to live. I'll take everything from you, starting with your life, and then I will kill your pathetic son, and then I'll revive him and your other brat, and I'll kill them again, and again, and again! Your sons will know nothing but PAIN.

"You want pain?" cried Sans, "Tibia honest, not sure this will work, but it's worth a try."

Now, now. Now is not the time to be humerus.

W-what? What are you doing?

"Beating you."

With that, Sans held out his hands. He concentrated hard. I expected another blast from one of my blasters but, instead, it was a regular old bone attack. It was tiny, and weak, and I expected more from him, but I almost did not noticed the blue color of it.

Is that it? I laughed so long and hard that the little skeleton's bones rattled. His pathetic little attack was so weak, it passed right through his daddy's bone barrier, floated towards the darkness, and, eventually, fizzled away. It was weak. Pathetic. Less than nothing.

"I win," said Sans.

What?

He winked? Why would he wink? "Don't sound so Sternum. It ain't a fibula."

More knives. That is what this little idiot deserved. He can't dodge forever.

However, before the knives could form, beginning from the spot where Sans' blue bone touched my hands, a sensation of gravity began to spread across my entirety. I realized what had happened, and when I realized it, they realized it.

Realized what? What is it?

I thought you all were smarter than that. Don't you outnumber me?

Yes! YES! But... Stop it. Whatever you're doing, stop it!

I'm afraid I am no longer in control.

"That's right," said Sans, "He's blue now. That's _my_ attack."

Both I and the SOULs felt the bone barrier begin to move. Sans was holding out his arms, smile plastered on his face. In desperation, the SOULs began to rain knives down from every direction, but Sans simply continued to smile. He had discovered something new, something only he could do, and I was so deliriously proud of him.

Using his new-found powers, Sans pulled my hands apart from their interlocked position and then repositioned me all around, deflecting all of the knives with my hands. He then began to construct a new barrier surrounding himself, perfectly circular, built out of my many hands.

Stop it! You can't hide in there forever. You have to die! Die! DIE!

Suddenly, the SOULs felt a strange sensation, as if they had been suddenly struck numb. Gaster felt it as well. Sans was relieved to see that the narration had returned to its natural state. It was getting confusing trying to tell the two voice apart.

"What!?" screamed the sevenfold voices of the SOULs as control was suddenly robbed from them. The hands shielding Sans from view slowly faded from their blue color, and unfolded themselves, revealing what Sans had done.

With his control over Gaster's piece of the fused SOULs, Sans had used his blue attack to force the hands closer to him. He had wrapped his arms around the thumb of one of Gaster's hands in a forceful hug. He had his eyes closed, and his grip on Gaster's thumb was like a vice.

"No!" the SOULs said, "You didn't! How?"

"I don't know," said Gaster, "And I've never been more proud."

When Sans felt a hand run over the top of his head, he opened his eyes. In his arms wasn't a giant boney thumb. His face was leaning against the breast pocket of a perfectly tailored suit stretched over a thin, boney frame. Sans looked up, and saw his father – still with the cracks in his face, but more or less under his own control. The two of them stood like that for a moment, simply hugging one another, desperate for this all to end.

"Dad?" said Sans, tears welling up in his eyes.

"Shhh, It's alright," said Gaster, "It's over. You did it."

Their hug tightened, but as it did, Sans could feel his father's form begin to squash and liquefy. He opened his eyes wide and looked at Gaster's suit. He was melting away.

"D-Dad? What's going on?" cried Sans, "What's happening."

"You defeated me," said Gaster, "The engine is working overtime to try to sort out the mess I've made."

"B-but... but what's going to happen to you?"

"I... I don't know. I am part of the paradox, after all," said Gaster, trying to keep his face smiling and calm, even as he began to sweat, "Perhaps I'll die. Perhaps I'll simply cease to be. It is a grand mystery, isn't it?"

Sans shook his head, "No! No, you can't die. You just can't."

"It's alright, Sans. This... this was all my fault. This was because of my hubris."

"But we beat them. We beat the SOULs. The engine has them paralyzed. Seven copies of the same SOUL can't exist, but there's only one of you. You can go on! You can exist!"

"No. I'm still in here with them. I am a part of them," he explained, "I will be torn apart."

"But...!"

Sans felt his father's arms tighten around him, even as they were beginning to lose their form.

"I love you, Sans, and I love your brother, and despite that, I nearly destroyed you. That is all that matters," explained Gaster, slowly, "I would have torn you both apart and remade you from the ground up. You would have been handsome, smart, loving, driven, curious. You would have been the princes of my universe. But... you would not have been you. You would not have been my boys. That's why... that's why I deserve this."

"You don't! You don't deserve any of this! It wasn't your fault. You were only doing what you thought was right!"

Gaster smiled, and Sans was relieved that he could see his father's teeth in the smile. "Yes. I did. That is why I am dangerous. More dangerous even then the SOULs. I didn't know what I was doing was wrong. Don't worry, the engine will fix my mistakes, but as a price, I must go."

Suddenly, Gaster trembled. He was no longer the svelte, classy skeleton that Sans knew him as. He was some kind of amorphous blob with a face that resembled nothing more than a horrifying parody of W. D. Gaster. Only his hands survived intact, with long, beautiful fingers, and expressive gestures. Sans held one of them tight, trying to keep his father from leaving.

"I can... feel what is happening. I'm going away soon, Sans," said Gaster, blinking his eyes, "Dark. Darker. Yet darker. The darkness keeps growing."

"Dad...?"

"The shadows cutting deeper... deeper... Photon reading negative."

"Dad, don't go, please."

"This next experiment seems very... very... interesting," whispered Gaster, before he, with two faces, regarded his son, and the presence of the seven human SOULs, "What do you two think?"

Sans could not see through his own tears. All he could do was hold onto his father tightly, refusing to let go.

"Sans," whispered Gaster, with a smile. He pointed at himself, "What do you call the quack who ruined everything," he then pointed to Sans, "And the quack who fixed it all."

Sans knew the answer. It came to his mind suddenly, and he laughed at the punchline before he could even say it. He wiped the tears from his eyes, intending to face his father in their final moments together.

He opened his eyes wide, so that the blue shone through, and he said, "A Paradox."

They both laughed, wistfully, before Gaster began to fade. He was melting, and pieces of him were beginning to float away. Sans looked up at his father's remains, floating through the air, and screamed for his father once they began to fly off in every direction. He jumped up, reaching for them, but they seemed to pass through his hands, as if they simply no longer existed. Soon, Gaster was gone, torn apart by the Paradox Engine.

Goodbye.

Sans fell to his knees, and tears fell down into the void. It was all over.

Or was it?

Sans looked up when he noticed a glow of red light over his head. He furrowed his brow, regarding the sight of the seven human SOULs circling over his head with deep, seething hatred.

"Howdy," he heard, or saw. He thought he heard the SOULs speaking, but he could also see the text beneath them, in a little black and white box, typing itself out, "You thought you had won, but look what happened to Daddy."

"Shut up..."

"He's going to be lost forever, you know?" said the SOULs, "No one will remember him. He will fade into the background noise of the universe. Even if someone knows where to look, they will only ever find pieces. You will never see him again."

"Shut up!"

Sans waved his arms. One of the souls turned bright blue all of a sudden, and, with a flick of Sans' wrist, he slammed it hard into another of them. The two SOULs collided, and with a scream, shattered and scattered across the universe, following Gaster into the void. Five remained.

"Useless. You're useless. You couldn't even save the person closest to you."

"And you couldn't even finish your big scheme, could you?" retorted Sans, "You're dust. That's all that matters now."

"We could still save him, you know," the SOULs said, quietly, "Five souls. That is more than enough DETERMINATION to pull his pieces out of the gutter of the universe. All you would have to do is take us into you. We'll give ourselves to you, freely."

Sans held his breath. Could his father really be saved?

No! No of course not. It was just a trick. Sans screamed, and released one of his blasters to fire into the group. Another two SOULs were hit, and shattered across the multiverse.

"You stupid fool! If you don't take this chance, there will be nothing left of him. You will never see him again."

"But I'll remember," said Sans, quietly, "Even if no one else does, I'll remember him. Even if I don't have enough DETERMINATION left to do anything but that. I'll be able to remember the timelines where he existed."

"There are only three of me left. This is your last chance."

Sans laughed, and then turned another SOUL blue and shattered it.

"Don't you mean two? Can't you count?"

"Don't mistake me for that old fool, you idiot! I am not a monster SOUL. I am human. I have DETERMINATION. No matter how lost I am, you will never be rid of me."

"Oh yeah? That's real interesting."

Sans, feigning good humor, sent a simple, white bone flying through the air with a flick of his finger. It collided with one of the SOULs, and shattered it, leaving only one.

"I can still influence events from beyond the universe. All it will take is one human with perfect, cruel intention," the SOUL said, "That's all it will take, and I'll be able to dig my fingers into the broken pieces of their SOUL. When that happens, I will live again."

"Uh huh?"

"And next time? I will not be satisfied with the deaths of the humans. You will die. Your loved ones will die. Your precious brother will be among the first I cut down. I will destroy this world, erase everything, and then take my vengeance on the surface!"

"Well, isn't that knife. Hate to cut this short, but I think it's my turn to take a stab at this whole vengeance thing."

"Die!" screamed the SOUL, the only thing that was running through its simplistic mind.

"It's beam real," said Sans, before his power began to build, causing the Paradox Engine to glow bright blue, "Now go to hell!"

The SOUL screamed as all four of Sans' Gaster blasters emerged, pointed the way towards the little red heart, and, as one, fired. The heart almost refused to break, but with the intense power Sans was putting out, pieces began to fly off of it, until there was nothing left.

All of the Paradoxes were resolved. Time made sense again. Without the power of the SOUL keeping it afloat, Sans could feel the void begin to collapse in on itself. He closed his eyes and let himself be taken to wherever he belonged. The engine in his head kept him safe, and he faded away into the blackness of the universe.

–

Sans awoke from the nightmare in a cold sweat. He sat bolt upright, his body chilly even in the heat of Hotland, and he looked around his room wildly. Everything was quiet, and dark. He was alone. He calmed down. Just a dream. None of it was real.

He felt as if he had been asleep for days, and so he whipped off the blankets and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He stood up, stretching out his bones. He wondered what was for breakfast. He wondered idly what pancakes and ketchup would taste like.

He picked a white shirt up off the ground and slipped it on, and then pulled on a pair of basketball shorts over his boxers. He then slipped his feet into a pair of blue slippers. He felt like maybe he was up early. He never got up so promptly after waking.

He called out, "Dad! What's for breakfast? I'm starving."

"Sans, what are you talking about?" called another voice from out in the hall, "It's Spaghetti morning! You need to come out."

"P-papyrus?"

Sans' eyes went wide. He suddenly realized what was going on. He remembered it all, everything. He held his face in his hands, tears welling in his eyes, as he fell to his knees. In sheer horror, he began to beat upon the sides of his head, feeling the pain swell on either side of his face. He couldn't save his father. He let his father die.

"Sans! Get up!" cried Papyrus as he barged into Sans' room. He was wearing a frilly white apron, even though it didn't fit him, but he stopped cold in his tracks when he saw Sans on his knees, tears streaming down his face. "Sans?"

"Oh... P-Papyrus. Sorry I..." he began, trying to find a way to explain, "I'm sorry I'm such a lazybones."

"Ahhhh!" screamed Papyrus, "No puns while sad! Sadpuns are badpuns!"

With that, Papyrus launched himself at his brother, wrapping his arms around him. The hug took Sans off guard, but eventually, he reciprocated, even chancing a little smile.

"I don't know what came over me. I... I guess I was just remembering Dad."

"Dad?"

"Yeah, y'know..."

Papyrus seemed confused, "You remember about Dad?"

Sans was quiet for a moment, before he fell back onto his butt, sitting on the floor. He pulled Papyrus down with him, so that the kid was sitting in his lap. Sans hugged his brother to himself so tight that Papyrus feared something was gonna break, but he didn't say anything.

"Did I ever tell you anything about him?"

"I... I don't remember."

"That's okay. I can tell you now," said Sans, "He was... tall, and stylish. You take after him more than I do. I think you're probably gonna be way taller than I am."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah! And your sense of style can't be beat," said Sans, "He was a scientist. He invented things, beautiful things. That's why we live in this laboratory. He created the escalators in the hall, and the automatic door into the basement."

"I always wondered about that."

"And... and he was a hero. He tried to free us all from the barrier, so we could go to the surface."

"And what happened to him?"

"He..." began Sans, finding that he couldn't adequately explain. Instead he said, "He fell into the CORE. He's gone, but you have to promise me something."

"Okay! I can do that!"

"Promise me that you'll always remember that Dad was a hero, okay?"

There were stars in Papyrus' eyes as he heard this, and he nodded his head, smiling broadly, "Okay! Yeah!"

"Good. Now, did you say Spaghetti today?"

"Yup! With marinara sauce."

"Did you remember to cook it this time?"

"W-well, yeah! Maybe a little. It's soft-ish."

Sans smiled, and allowed himself a laugh. Papyrus smiled as well, unsure why his brother was acting so strange. His eyes traveled down Sans' face, however, and his brow furrowed at what he saw there.

"Hey, Sans, what's that red stuff?"

Sans blinked, and touched the side of his mouth with a finger. He must have hit his own face harder than he intended. That red stuff was leaking from him again. It was alarming to look at. Since when did bones bleed?

"Hah," he said, laughing it off, "Don't worry. It's just ketchup. I probably fell asleep in the middle of eating ketchup packets again."

"Sans, that's gross!" said Papyrus, standing up and crossing his arms, "Come downstairs and eat real food. It's perfectly al dente. Probably more dente than al, but you can eat it just fine."

"Haha, okay, okay. Now get out of my room! I'll be down in a minute, Papyrus," said Sans.

"Right," said Papyrus, before he stood and turned, rushing out of Sans' room. He looked back just long enough to say, "Thanks for telling me about Dad, Sans!"

"No problem kiddo."

The two brothers smiled at each other, and Papyrus slammed the door closed, humming idly to himself a little song he made up about some half remembered dream where he learned to make spaghetti from a fish lady.


End file.
